Category: Everything Grants

Changes to Biographical Sketches for All Federal Agencies’ Funding Applications

While a full roll-out isn’t expected until 2016, the NIH and other federal funding agencies will be changing their bibliographical sketch format. Continue reading “Changes to Biographical Sketches for All Federal Agencies’ Funding Applications”

In Case You Missed It: NIH Amends Resubmission Policy

In 2009, the NIH restricted the number of resubmissions of applications for funding to one (A1), requiring any subsequent new research funding applications (A0) to be substantially different from the unfunded application. Shrinking research budgets and the impacts of this restriction–it requires researchers to substantially re-direct their work, which may mean reorienting the efforts of a whole lab–were taking an obvious toll on research, with many meritorious ideas being abandoned as a result of this restriction. Continue reading “In Case You Missed It: NIH Amends Resubmission Policy”

Plagiarism in Grant Proposals

Last year, The Chronicle of Higher Education published an article titled “Plagiarism in Grant Proposals” by Karen M. Markin. The topic of plagiarism in grant proposals is something I discuss in my grant development seminars and workshops, and this article made the topic more tangible for many of the participants (although there is still always a lot of discussion and disbelief around the concept of self-plagiarism).  If you haven’t read this article, and you are involved in grant development, I would highly recommend that you take some time to review the article and share it with your team. One very salient point made is that the PI will always be held responsible for content, and the line “my graduate student did it” is not a defense.

Often, however, seminar and workshop participants ask for an example, and recently a case of plagiarism in a grant proposal was addressed by the Office of Research Integrity. Continue reading “Plagiarism in Grant Proposals”

Tracking and Organizing Your Social Media with Bitly

Tracking and Organizing Your Social Media with Bitly

In this business you need to keep up with available and emerging technologies, but the trick to staying productive is to pick and choose the tools in which to invest your time. The tools I choose typically have some competitive advantage over other tools in the area of efficiency–there simply isn’t enough time in the day to explore inefficient tools in the hope that there is some hidden benefit as yet unexplored that will change the calculus of efficient time management. But this article makes me want to re-consider Bitly, a tool I have used solely to shorten links. It would seem I’m missing out on some potentially interesting Bitly tools. Analytics for links across multiple sites and media is just one benefit of Bitly, and this article explores other Bitly tools of which many are unaware.

Happy exploring!

Choosing the Right Study Section

Many researchers are unaware that they can choose a study section for their investigator-initiated application in some instances. This is not an option for every agency and foundation, but it is for the NIH, for example. In fact, any researcher applying to the NIH who does not spend some quality time researching the study section listings and other abundant materials available to applicants at the Web site for the NIH’s Center for Scientific Review (CSR) is missing a strategic opportunity.  Continue reading “Choosing the Right Study Section”

Shifting to Writing for the Emerging Patient-Centered Research Paradigm

For those of you who are interested in patient-centered research, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) has released a report that may be of interest to you: Partnering with Patients to Drive Shared Decisions, Better Value, and Care Improvement – Workshop Proceedings. This report has an accompanying four-page meeting summary, as well, and I would recommend this summary not just for its content, but for its utility as a writing model for those strategic communicators new to the area of patient-centered research. Continue reading “Shifting to Writing for the Emerging Patient-Centered Research Paradigm”

Biographical Sketches Brief

Although called different things by different agencies and foundations, a biographical sketch by any other name is still a biographical sketch, and it is an important part of your grant application. One very important purpose of the biographical sketch is to indicate to the funding entity that the assembled project team has the expertise to perform the proposed project from start to finish. I have seen solid grant proposals rejected by reviewers because it was unclear that the project team had the expertise required to complete the project. In some cases, the teams did have the expertise, but their biographical sketches did not reflect it.

The good news is that the solution is straightforward: simply allot some time during the proposal development process to carefully comb through the proposal and identify the tasks required by the project and who is responsible for each task. Then, assemble the team’s biographical sketches and compare them to this list of responsibilities. The biographical sketches should clearly indicate that the appropriate team members have the experience and expertise necessary to successfully complete the tasks at hand.

If you complete this exercise early enough in the development process, you will have enough time to address any gaps. In some cases, a biographical sketch may simply be incomplete, but in others you may need to acquire the requisite training or add a collaborator with the training and expertise to your team. In the end, time spent reviewing your team’s biographical sketches is time very well spent in this time of declining funding, low success rates, and increased competition.