CFAR Grant Writing Tutorial
Beginning in June 2008, the CFAR Developmental Core will begin sponsoring a series of three 90-minute workshops on NIH grant writing. Attendance at these workshops is restricted to individuals who plan to apply for funding via the CFAR03 funding mechanism.
Workshops for individuals applying on the September 1, 2008 deadline will be held:
12:00 - 2:00pm
Fridays, June 13, 20, and 27
Attendance at the workshop is free.
Pre-registration is mandatory.
GOAL
The goal of this workshop series is to help CFAR03 applicants produce high quality proposals and avoid unnecessary errors in the proposal process. As the instructor says: "Let the review committee debate your science, not your presentation."
JUSTIFICATION
In order to get funded, you must have an excellent/outstanding proposal. Good or great won’t get you funded although you might have worthy science. A mediocre proposal or even a good one that has a significant flaw even in one section won’t get scored (but will get reviewed). This means each section of the proposal must be flawless from a presentation perspective and the science must be excellent/outstanding, and it must be conveyed to the reader in such a way that makes the reader think while they are reading “This is great, tell me more.”
The goal of this course is to help you craft a beautifully written, logical, internally consistent, extremely well-organized proposal. You will work with your research mentor to have a scientifically important research plan and a cohesive training/mentoring plan. The course instructor will help you convey the information in these sections but she cannot tell you if you are proposing good or important science. Her role will be to emulate a review -- i.e. to be a very picky, non-expert, intelligent reader.
To get funded, your already excellent research plan must stand out as something special because the competition is formidable. If you appear highly organized (because your proposal is such) and your writing is clear (good, declarative scientific writing) and your solid career development goals are woven throughout the document, you will stand out. This is all in addition to excellent references, commitment to your career from the institution, reasonable but relevant preliminary results, etc.
AGENDA
The workshop will address specific grant writing strategies for preparing an NIH style proposal and is tailored to the needs of original and revised applications being submitted in response to a CFAR03 RFP.
The course will NOT focus on the sections that are better addressed by individual departmental administrators such as assurances, (some) budgetary issues, space issues, etc. The (draft) outline of the course is:
CLASS 1 (June 13):
- Overview of grant writing strategies in general and the CFAR proposal in particular
- Approaching a revision to a grant proposal
- Review of the elements of the PHS SF424 – biosketch, description box, Resources Format Page, budget overview, human subjects, animal care
CLASS 2 (June 20):
- Research Plan - examples of beginning each section, organization, clarity, relating the sections, style of writing
- Specific Aims – language, opening paragraph, formatting, construction of aims, hypotheses
- Background and Significance
- Preliminary Studies
- Research Design and Methods
CLASS 3 (June 27):
- Examples of constructing different sections.
- Using examples from real summary sheets to address problems in proposals.
WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT
At each class Dr. Gross will present a power point that will review the topics described above. She will give you very specific instructions about each of the sections highlighting instructions that might present a challenge as well as strategies for tackling each section. There will be plenty of time for questions and presentation of individual sections of proposals, should you wish to offer these.
In between classes, you are encouraged to email sections of your draft grant proposal to Dr. Gross for review and critique. If you are fairly well-organized and a clear writer, she will use track changes on your document to expedite her comments. Otherwise, she will mark up your document by hand and email you general comments. Hard copies of documents may be collected from the Emory CFAR in the Grace Crum Rollins Building (School of Public Health), 8th floor.
In Dr. Gross' experience, most people progress from method 2 to method 1. She will spend approximately 4 hours on each proposal, which gets you a lot of reviewing. As a result it is best to send her a section that you have put a lot of time into – it is not very useful for her to review very early drafts that are still under construction as her comments will focus largely on organization and not substance.
She will review or give comments on an organizational idea, a table, or a brief example of a section, say a page of Preliminary Studies, or the methodology for single experiment. Don’t be afraid to send her your materials! To date, the candidates who utilize Dr. Gross' editing/reviewing services have been fairing better than those who don’t.
Class attendance is not mandatory, we understand that everyone has very busy schedules. We are happy to email the power point to you if you miss class and would like it. You will benefit most from a combination of class attendance and individual feedback on your writing though as Dr. Gross will not spend a lot of time editing something if it was just reviewed in class. It is also fine if you prefer to just audit the class and not send in materials for review though.
HOW TO REGISTER
Contact the course instructor, Dr. Janet Gross (see contact info below)
CONTACTS
Course Instructor
Janet Gross, PhD
Grants Tutorial Director, Office of Postdoctoral Education
Emory University
phone: 404/873-1563
e-mail: janet.gross@comcast.net
Dr. Kimberly Hagen, Associate Director, CFAR Developmental Core
phone: 404/727-2924
fax: 404/727-9853
e-mail: kimberly.hagen@emory.edu
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