Advice for Early Career Clinical Stroke Researchers Applying for National Institutes of Health Funding

HomeStrokeVol. 54, No. 3Advice for Early Career Clinical Stroke Researchers Applying for National Institutes of Health Funding Free AccessResearch ArticlePDF/EPUBAboutView PDFView EPUBSections ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload citationsTrack citationsPermissionsDownload Articles + Supplements ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InMendeleyReddit Jump toSupplemental MaterialFree AccessResearch ArticlePDF/EPUBAdvice for Early Career Clinical Stroke Researchers Applying for National Institutes of Health Funding Eliza C. Miller, MD, MS and Victoria Pemberton, RNC, MS Eliza C. MillerEliza C. Miller Correspondence to: Eliza C. Miller, MD, MS, Department of Neurology, Columbia University, 710 West 168th St, 6th floor, New York, NY 10032. Email E-mail Address: [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7108-8906 Department of Neurology, Division of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Disease, Columbia University, New York (E.C.M.). Search for more papers by this author and Victoria PembertonVictoria Pemberton https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5610-9070 National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD (V.P.). Search for more papers by this author Originally published1 Feb 2023https://doi.org/10.1161/STROKEAHA.122.037420Stroke. 2023;54:e100–e103Other version(s) of this articleYou are viewing the most recent version of this article. Previous versions: February 1, 2023: Ahead of Print In the United States, government funding is the currency of academic success. Extramural research funding from federal agencies brings prestige to the grantee’s institution; “ranking” scores such as the US News and World Report “Best Hospitals” weight research funding heavily.1 In addition, federal grants come with “indirect” funds, which support the institutional research infrastructure. Thus, an investigator who successfully secures federal research funding is highly valuable to an academic department.In this article, we provide a framework for junior clinical investigators applying for National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding. Similar principles apply for other US government agencies as well as other governmental sources of funding globally. This article is not intended as a comprehensive guide to applying for NIH funding; additional resources are included in Table S1.Step 1: Know Why You Want the MoneyMany early career clinical stroke researchers complete training at academic teaching hospitals which routinely steer trainees towards research. Yet, assembling an NIH grant is complex and time-consuming, and most proposals are not funded.2 To succeed in the face of these long odds, you must have the right motivation.Good reasons to apply for NIH funding include: you have a burning research question; you can’t imagine your career without research; you think your project is critically important to improving human health and must be done.Bad reasons to apply for NIH funding include: fulfilling other people’s expectations and definitions of success; research seems like the “default” path; you desire fame or money; you want “protected time” because you feel burned out by clinical work.Do not apply for NIH funding if you are not in it for the long haul. The coveted K-series Career Development Award, which protects 75% of a clinician’s time for research and career development for 5 years, should not be seen as an end point, but as a step toward your long-term goals (Figure).Download figureDownload PowerPointFigure. National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding: steps to success as an independent investigator. The NIH targets funding mechanisms to all academic career stages, from early stage mentored grants through multicenter program projects and contracts. While promotion policies vary between and within institutions, those pursuing a primary research career will often need to demonstrate funding success to advance on the path. Investigators who reach independence have an obligation to serve as mentors for early career colleagues, who may in turn become collaborators and co-investigators on future projects.Step 2: Find the Right Grant MechanismMany NIH grants are aimed specifically at early stage investigators (ESIs). These “training grants” (F, T32, or K series awards) are intended to develop your skills so that you are ready for the next step. Another valuable early career funding opportunity, the NIH Loan Repayment Program, provides up to $50 000 per year in loan repayment for ESI who spend 50% of their time on research.3 Diversity Awards from multiple NIH institutes support career development for junior investigators from high school level through early faculty, who are members of under-represented minority groups.4Step 3: Know the Scoring SystemNIH grant proposals are reviewed by panels of independent scientists (a “Study Section [SS]”) who follow strict scoring guidelines. Reviewers score proposals on 5 criteria: Significance, Investigator, Innovation, Approach, and Environment. After initial review, the top-scoring 50% of proposals are discussed at the SS meeting and given a final Impact Score. While there is a cut-off score (the “payline”) beyond which a proposal is unlikely to be funded, poorer scoring proposals may be funded if the project addresses a high priority topic. Each NIH Institute, Center, and Office has different paylines.The Approach section contributes the most to the overall Impact Score.5 However, Significance remains critical. A project with low significance is unlikely to be funded, no matter how novel it is and how rigorous the approach. Ask yourself: why should taxpayer dollars be spent on this? What problem in human health can only be solved by your project? Of note, if the project’s significance is sufficiently high, then innovation may be less important.Step 4: Checklist for Successful Grant Writing□ Tell your story. Write a 1-page “story” that outlines your aims, shows why your research is innovative, how it addresses knowledge gaps, and what impact it will have. Show your passion and engage the reader immediately with data to demonstrate your proposal’s importance. This “Specific Aims” page will be useful as you “pitch” your research. Have multiple experienced investigators read your Specific Aims before you write the whole grant.□ Start small. If the NIH proposal seems overwhelming, apply for a pilot grant from a foundation or internal institutional mechanism. Even if you don’t get it, you will learn from the process. The NIH Loan Repayment Program is another excellent “starter” grant for ESI, since the application requires many of the same elements of larger proposals. New investigators can capitalize on an existing study infrastructure, such as an ongoing cohort study, dataset, or biobank. Government-funded studies have an obligation to share data. Don’t be afraid to reach out to the study steering committee and propose an ancillary study.□ Consider the budget. Ask your departmental or institutional grants manager for a budget template and start filling it in. This will help you avoid the common “too ambitious” criticism from reviewers, since you will realize your brilliant idea will never fit within the standard budget.□ Take advantage of NIH policies and resources (see supplemental table). NIH supports ESI (individuals within 10 years of completing training) through specific policies,6 for example, reviewers are instructed to put less emphasis on experience and preliminary data. Tools such as RePORTER and Matchmaker can identify NIH-funded grants that may be similar to your work, help you choose the right Institute, Center, and Office, and ensure you don’t duplicate other research.□ Consider the study section. The NIH Center for Scientific Review provides SS descriptions, rosters, and tools to help you identify the best SS for your project. Evaluate the rosters for reviewers who have expertise relevant to your proposal. Center for Scientific Review will use its own algorithms and expertise to assign your application if you do not make a request or Center for Scientific Review feels that a different SS is better aligned with your proposal’s goals. You can always request a change in the assigned SS, although this is not always guaranteed.□ Call your program official! Program officials at the NIH are dedicated, experienced scientists. They are typically delighted to talk with you about your science and guide your proposal in the right direction. Reach out to program officials at different ICOs and share your Aims page with them to determine the best “fit” for your grant.□ Don’t reinvent the wheel. Ask a colleague or mentor to show you their successful grant, along with the reviewer comments, and read it carefully. Once your own proposal is funded, you can do the same for your peers.□ Consider your audience. Your grant will be read by established scientists who may know little about your particular sub-sub-sub specialty. Avoid jargon. Write clearly and organize your content with section headers. Use (but do not overuse) underline, italic, and bolding to draw attention to key concepts. Show your draft to researchers outside your own field. If they don’t understand your proposal, neither will the reviewers.□ Become an early career reviewer. This program offers ESI the extraordinarily valuable opportunity to participate as junior members of a SS, allowing you to see first-hand what makes a grant proposal compelling.7Step 5: Common Mistakes of Inexperienced Grant WritersForgetting to proofread. Sloppy writing can distract reviewers from your message. If writing is not your strength, get help editing your draft, especially if English is your second language.Packing in too much text. NIH proposals have strict page limits.Do not submit a “wall of text.” Remember, your reviewers are reading your grant in their free time, possibly late at night, and have many grants to review. If it’s hard to read, they may lose interest.“Too ambitious.”This is a common criticism of ESI proposals. Write fewer aims with clear hypotheses and a well-developed approach. Emphasize your project’s significance, but avoid grandiosity.Rushing the process.NIH grant proposals take time. Write multiple drafts incorporating iterative feedback from mentors. In addition, all the attachments (biosketches, facilities and equipment, support letters, human subjects protections, budget justifications) take a long time to prepare. Allow yourself 6 months to prepare your first grant proposal.Dragging out the process.Conversely, do not avoid submitting because you think the proposal is not perfect. Assume your proposal will be rejected on the first submission—most are.8 You will get useful feedback and can resubmit.Giving up after the first rejection.Rejections hurt, especially if the proposal you worked on for months fell into the bottom 50% and was not discussed. After rejection, take time to let your emotions settle. Then read the reviews with your mentor. Were your proposal’s flaws “fatal”? If the criticisms were with the Approach rather than Significance, these are usually addressable. If the Significance was considered low, talk to your program officials; it’s possible that the proposal was not well matched to the interests of that SS.Challenging the reviewers.When you are ready to resubmit, you will have one page to provide a response to the initial review. If reviewers did not understand something, it is likely that you did not present it clearly. Carefully respond to each major point made by your reviewers. If you feel that your review was biased, completely misunderstood or unfair, talk with your program officials who can help you with what to do next.ConclusionsIf you hate writing grants, a primary research career is probably not going to fulfill you. However, while grant writing can be intimidating, it can also be rewarding. Clear writing requires clear thinking. Convincing reviewers of your work’s significance will remind you why you do research. Writing your Specific Aims will force you to distill your ideas to the essential elements. Clearly stating your hypotheses and meticulously describing your methods will lead to more reproducible results. In fact, the grant-writing is the science, as much as pipetting samples or enrolling patients in trials. Scientists work at the NIH or volunteer their time for SS because they think in its core mission of advancing scientific knowledge to improve human health. Stroke causes immense human suffering; you should not doubt the significance of your science. If you are passionate about your work, the ideas will flow and the grants will write themselves.Article InformationSources of FundingDr Miller is supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (K23NS107645, L30NS103925, R01NS122815), the NIH National Institute on Aging (R21AG069111) and the Gerstner Family Foundation (Gerstner Scholars Program). The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; the NIH; or the US Department of Health and Human Services.Disclosures None.FootnotesThe opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the editors or of the American Heart Association.Supplemental Material is available at https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/suppl/10.1161/STROKEAHA.122.037420.For Sources of Funding and Disclosures, see page e103.Correspondence to: Eliza C. Miller, MD, MS, Department of Neurology, Columbia University, 710 West 168th St, 6th floor, New York, NY 10032. Email [email protected]columbia.eduReferences1. US News. Which Schools get the Most Research Money?. Accessed September 1, 2022. https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-medical-schools/most-research-money-rankings. Published 2021.Google Scholar2. National Institute of Health. Investigator Career Stage. Accessed September 1, 2022. https://report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/category/15.Google Scholar3. Health NIo. Supporting Scientific Discovery. Accessed September 1, 2022. https://www.lrp.nih.gov/.Google Scholar4. National Institute of Health. Diversity Awards. Accessed September 1, 2022. https://www.ninds.nih.gov/Funding/Training-Career-Development/Diversity-Awards.Google Scholar5. Eblen MK, Wagner RM, RoyChowdhury D, Patel KC, Pearson K. How criterion scores predict the overall impact score and funding outcomes for National Institutes of Health peer-reviewed applications.PLoS One. 2016; 11:e0155060. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0155060CrossrefGoogle Scholar6. National Institute of Health. Early Stage Investigator Policies.Accessed September 1, 2022. https://grants.nih.gov/policy/early-stage/index.htm.Google Scholar7. National Institute of Health. Early Career Reviewer (ECR) Program. Accessed September 1, 2022. https://public.csr.nih.gov/ForReviewers/BecomeAReviewer/ECR.Google Scholar8. National Institutes of Health. Success Rates: R01-Equivalent and Research Project Grants Web site. Accessed September 1, 2022. https://report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/category/10.Google Scholar Previous Back to top Next FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails March 2023Vol 54, Issue 3 Advertisement Article InformationMetrics © 2023 American Heart Association, Inc.https://doi.org/10.1161/STROKEAHA.122.037420PMID: 36722345 Originally publishedFebruary 1, 2023 PDF download Advertisement SubjectsCerebrovascular Disease/Stroke