A CAREER DEVELOPMENT GRANT APPLICATION

David Felson, M.D., M.P.H.Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology

Former Member, NIH SBSR and EDC1 Study Sections

Mentor of 5 K grants and on >20 RRF/AF career development grants

Outline of this Talk

• Review of Options in Submitting a Grant• Rates of Success of Grants at NIH • K grant Options • Rules for writing a K or other career

development grant• Deciding about Resubmission

Why Would You Want to Write a Grant?

• To Have the Resources and Time to Pursue a Question that you believe is important

• To protect your time and give you freedom

• To pay your salary

• As a measure of academic accomplishment

What Qualities Characterize a Successful Grant Writer

• Good research skills• Salesmanship• Good communication

skills• Persistence

• Ingenuity and flexibility

• Administrative skills• Good human relations

What Kind of Grant Should You Write?

Career Development Grant (K series)

• Funds you, a junior investigator

• Goal is to protect your time/optimize career development

• Scientific proposal not only part of grant

Grant to do Research (R, P series)

• Provides funds to carry out a research project

• Scientific proposal is central piece of grant, includes prelim data, experience of investigators

Career Development Grants at NIH

K01 Ph.D. (nonclinical) Biomed/behavioral research

K02 Ph.D. (nonclinical) Biomed/behavioral research; must have grant

K08 MD or other clinical

Biomed/translational/behavioral research

K23 MD or other clinical

Patient-oriented research; direct patient contact necessary

K99/R00 PhD or Clinical(non U.S. eligible)

Any research; 2 yrs of K; 3 of R support

From Study Section to Institute Council

• Institutes have ‘pay lines’: the percentage of competitive applications funded. These serve as general guides.

• Grant and summary statements sent to Institute Advisory Council. Council can change ranking of grant based on institute priorities.

• Institute staff make ultimate funding decisions.

K23 success by year UPDATE• 2008: 37.6%• 2009: 43.9%• 2010: 37.8%• 2011: 34%• 2012: 37%• 2013: 32%• 2014: 38%

K08 Success by Year

2008 44%

2009 47%

2010 44%

2011 42%

2012 42%

2013 38%

2014 40%

Research Project Grants

Success rates, by gender

2011 N.I.H. Funding Success Rates by Submission No. of Type 1

Grants*Submission No. All Research

Project GrantsR01’s only

First (original) 10.1% 9.5%

First Resubmission (A1)

37.7% 36.8%

Second Resubmission (A2) (if allowed)

27.8% 26.1%

Total Funding of Type 1’s

15.2% 15.1%

*Type I grants are new grants, as opposed to renewals

Scored Elements for K Grants• Candidate (you)*• Career Development Plan/Career Goals and

Objectives* • Research Plan*• Mentor(s), Co-Mentor(s), Consultant(s),

Collaborator(s)* • Environment & Institutional Commitment to the

Candidate*

Review Criteria for Candidate

• Is there potential to develop as an independent and productive researcher?

• Is prior training and research experience appropriate for this award?

• Is academic and research record of high quality? • Is there evidence of commitment to become an

independent investigator in patient-oriented research? • Do letters of reference provide evidence that the candidate

has a high potential for becoming an independent investigator? 

Advice for Candidate:

• Need at least a few (3+) first authored publications in peer reviewed journals.

• Publications should include those in area of K focus.

Review Criteria for Career Development Plan/Career Goals and Objectives

• Will the plan contribute substantially to the candidate’s development and lead to scientific independence?

• Are the content, scope,and phasing of the career development plan appropriate given prior training/research experience and objectives for achieving research independence?

• Are there adequate plans for evaluating the candidate's research and career development progress? 

Advice for Career Development Plan/Career Goals and Objectives

• Critical Component of review. Often underemphasized by candidate.

• Take courses; go to scientific meetings outside your current expertise. Take minisabbaticals.

• Learn new skills• Someone is offering you money to broaden

your scientific skills! Come up with a plan!

Example of Career Development Plan: Dr. Devyani Misra K

• Participate in Geriatrics Section of ACR• Take courses:

– GMS: Biochem Mechanisms of Aging– HS560: Muscle Biology– HSPH : Course on Mediation Analysis

• Go to Tufts Lab to learn about muscle physiology/imaging • BU rheum lab to learn ELISA assay• Women’s Leadership workshop AAMC

•

Review Criteria for: Research Plan*

• Are the proposed research question and design of significant scientific merit?

• Is research plan relevant to the candidate’s research career objectives?

• Is research plan appropriate to candidate's stage of research development and as a vehicle for developing the research skills described in the career development plan?

• Feasibility and Design more important than significance.

• Reviewers use research plan to get evidence that you can do high quality research---should they invest in you?

Advice Re: Research Plan

Review Criteria: Mentor(s), Co-Mentor(s), Consultant(s), Collaborator(s)*

• Mentor's research qualifications in the area of proposed research? Is the mentor productive in their research with peer-reviewed support?

• Is there adequate description of the quality and extent of the mentor’s proposed role?

• Is there evidence of the mentor’s, consultant’s and/or collaborator’s previous experience in fostering the development of investigators?

• Is support for the proposed research project adequate? • Mentor teams increasingly important. 

Advice re: Mentors/co-mentors• Another critical part of review.

Underemphasized by applicants.• Suggest co-mentors with complementary

expertise, not just one mentor.• Be specific about how often you will meet with

each mentor and what role each has.• If your mentor is not supported or has not had

many successful mentees, get senior co-mentor.

Review Criteria for Environment & Institutional Commitment to

the Candidate*• Is there clear insitutional commitment of the institution to

ensure that the required minimum of the candidate’s effort will be devoted directly to the research described?

• Is the institutional commitment to the career development of the candidate appropriately strong?

• Are research facilities adequate? Are faculty capable of productive collaboration with the candidate?

• Is the environment for scientific and professional development of high quality?

Advice re: Environment & Institutional Commitment to the

Candidate*• Must have strong letter from your department

chair (the person who represents the inst.):– Unequivocally commits to providing you 75%

protected time for research. – Contains other language that commits to your

development as investigator• You should be an Assistant Professor at time

of application: evidence of commitment

Reviewer Instructions for Overall Impact

Reviewers should provide their assessment of the likelihood that the proposed career development and research plan will enhance the candidate’s potential for a productive, independent scientific research career, taking into consideration all the criteria scores in determining the overall impact score.

Once you’ve submitted, you’re not done

• Examine the names of listed reviewers; check with your mentors/senior colleagues

• Are those with right expertise reviewing your grant?

• Act early (with institute assignee) to challenge reviewers if needed.

Your future as Grant Applicant

• You will be faced with an unfunded grant.• You will have to decide whether to:

– Revise and resubmit– Dump idea– Repackage and submit in another form/to

another agency

How to deal with the Summary Statement if your score is not

good enough to be funded

• Read summary statement seriously only after you have put it away for a week.

• Show summary statement to senior colleague/mentor who has experience with NIH reviews.

Deciphering the Summary Statement if your score is not

good enough to be funded• If >= 2 reviewers raise the same or similar issue, you

must address it. • Read the summary of discussion (at beginning)

carefully. Written by SRA, it contains main discussion points and will often guide you on whether to resubmit.

Deciding on Revise/Resubmit vs. Other

• Need to decide soon to revise/resubmit and begin to work on revision/prelim data

• Lots of work/time went into original submission. A revision is MUCH less work. Bias toward resubmission.

• If you decide not to revise/resubmit, the decision on what to do can wait

When NOT to resubmit:If you grant is triaged…

• No discussion took place (other concerns could have been raised)

• No impact scores provided

• Do not ResubmitException: if all reviewers point to one easily

rectifiable problem and no other major ones.

When you should resubmit…

• Initial score in 20’s, 30’s (reviewers often thought you would be funded and did not have major concerns);

• When concerns expressed by reviewers are addressable.

What types of concerns are usually addressable?

• Lack of preliminary data (get data)• Lack of innovation (market this better)• For K grant, lack of institutional support• High level of expense (can influence

scores)

What types of concerns are usually not immediately

addressable?• Lack of productivity (get more papers)• Lack of significance (sometimes can market

this but if >1 reviewer, this is problem)

And if you decide NOT to resubmit…

• Explore other funding options– For Career Development: Private foundations

(often specialty based)– For Research Grants: part of Center grants, R03,

R21, private foundations (e.g. AHA, Arthritis Foundation); local sources (e.g. pilot projects)

Much work and thought involved in developing the idea. Can the idea be modified?

R03

• Small grant ($50,000 per year X 2 years)• Ideal for collecting preliminary data• Also used to carry out secondary data

analyses• Not available at all NIH Institutes• Funding success rates similar to R01• Resets the R01 clock

R21

• Up to 2 years with total of $275,000 (no more than 200K in any year)

• Must be novel or high risk/high reward study. Develop new method/technique

• Not available at all NIH institutes• Funding success rates similar to R01• Resets the R01 clock

A K23 resubmitted successfully

• Initial summary statement concerns in resume (score 200 (scale 100-500))

However, the Review Committee identified some weaknesses that reduced the enthusiasm. While the research area is important, there are some issues related to the research design. For example, there is a concern that the research proposal is based on a large VA database which has complete focus on men when glucocorticoids are major drugs used by women with rheumatic diseases. In addition, there are some concerns about the proposal presentation and discussion. Furthermore, the reviewers note that a closer mentors’ involvement in the candidate’s application preparation will be helpful. Overall, the Review Committee is positive about the candidate’s commitment, mentors’ expertise, career development plan and institutional environment and support.

RESPONSE TO REVIEWERS

• “Because there are few women, the study will include only men. This will certainly limit the generalizability of the conclusions drawn from this research.”

•  • We have done additional work to verify the number of expected women and

men in this study. In VA fiscal year 2005, we identified 225,841 patients who received a GC prescription at least once. 14,914 were women. This estimate is for a single year whereas our study will encompass eight years. Though women are certainly less prevalent than men, this is an older and relatively high risk population; therefore, the rate of CV diseases in both sexes is expected to be high. Thus, there should be enough women to be able to perform sex-specific analyses.

Deciding whether to Resubmit: Know the Odds and Maximize

Them• Find out success rates for grants like yours.

• Submit to agencies which offer the highest likelihood of success.

• Search out private charitable organizations interested in funding your kind of research.

Who Reviews the Revision?

• Do not ask for different review group. They will raise yet other concerns.

• Generally, one of the previous reviewers is assigned the grant. Other reviewers will change.

• Most rereviewers (but not all) will focus only on your response to reviewers.

Writing Response to Reviewers (1)

• The reviewer is always right (even when they’re not!). Be respectful.

• You do not have to respond to every issue, but must articulate why not.

• If at least two reviewers raise an issue or it is raised in summary, you must address.

• Try to ‘throw them a bone’---don’t argue with every suggestion. Give in a bit.

Writing Response to Reviewers (2)

• Respond to reviewer by reviewer in order.• Make it easy for reviewers to track changes

in revised grant. (underline or bold new text).

Be nice to your reviewers in your revisions

• Large Font if possible• Clarity (a messy grant means messy science).• Tables/Figures—whenever possible• Consistency in #’s/labels!• Make revised part look different from original

http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/grant_tips.htm

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