How to write a successful Grant
Nancy Kiviat
Grant writing
What to do to learn to write a grant Is there a recipe for a successful grant
Past grant experience
Grants written and funded:
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Molecular epidemiology
Cancer Infection
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Molecular Pathogenesis Biomarker discovery HIV Immunology Cancer epidemiology Infection epidemiology AIDS Molecular pathogenesis
Study sections
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How to learn to write a successful grant
Should be part of fellowship program Help write grants in your research group When you are ready to write a grant
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Find a mentor Not necessarily someone you work Someone with a good track record Someone who will commit to meeting with you Read their old funded grants
Get on grant review panels Don’t get discouraged when your critiques come back and you need to make changes
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Successful grant writers always think they not the reviewing committee is correct But they always make suggested changes (with a smile)
Grant reviews are both instructive and a “crap shoot”
Most important issues to address when writing a grant
Propose to address a question that is important with an intriguing hypothesis Provide appropriate (a little but not too much) preliminary data Have, or collaborate with people with, a relevant track record Know the grant writing formula:
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Bad grants are terrible in many different ways Good grants all have certain things in common
Address an important question with an intriguing hypothesis
Spend several weeks thinking about what the question and the hypothesis is
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Question must be “hot”, important, novel. Hypothesis must be really interesting
Talk about aims and hypotheses with a variety of people
Provide appropriate preliminary data
At least one of the collaborators on the grant must have some preliminary data
relevant track record
Examples:
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T regulatory cells Collect biopsies from HIV infected persons Enroll and follow 500 people Develop new assays
collaborate
Know the grant writing formula:
Well written easy to understand
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Ask someone not in the field or even science to read the aims background and significance
Abbreviations, tables, figures First page: preamble and aims
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The “red light” test
First page: preamble and aims
Set the stage Paragraph #1:
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We are proposing …. The importance of the proposed study is…. We hypothesize… We propose Closing line summarizing importance
Paragraph #2:
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Aims
Recipe for writing a successful grant
Keep in mind the criteria that will be used to review your grant:
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Significance: (important health problem) Approach: (study design) Innovation: Investigators: Environment