Shirley Moore, Grant Writer

Significance

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 17:42:04 EST

Read again last night the strategic priorities of my funding agency (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute), Healthy People 2020 and the American Heart Association in preparation for refining the significance section. I think it’s important to use words that are similar to those in these documents. I always think of significance in two ways – significance of the problem and the potential significance of my study findings. Given the new guidelines, I also want to use the word “impact” in there as well.

Budget

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:38:59 EST

Met with the budget person today. She’s great at getting the budget details all down. It’s an art of when to start the budget – you don’t want to go too soon, but you don’t want to go too late, either. If you go too soon, you end up making lots of changes in the budget and using the time of your budget people inappropriately. On the other hand, a hastily put together budget at the end leaves you really open to making mistakes. I like to go when I have made my decisions about sample size, basic data collection points, and most of my procedures (well, at least 98% of my decisions about the procedures). Doing a budget about a month before a grant goes out is also a reality check on the feasibility and allows some time for you to revisit some of the costs that you had put into the study. Note: if you want to go over the $500,000 yearly limit in direct costs on a budget, you need to get program officer permission to do this 6 weeks in advance. (Not that I would advise going over this limit – it should be rarely done and few people other than seasoned investigators can really get this permission.)

Go Cavs!

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:31:38 EST

I guess I should explain that line at the end of my last posting - Go Cavs! I am a big basketball fan and watching LeBron James every other night is one of the delights in my life. What does this have to do with grant writing? - well, it's my way of clearing my head before I go to bed. A way to relax with my family. A way to turn off the problems of the grant for a little while. Hopefully, every grant writer has a way of doing this, because grant writing is just plain hard work. Am I sounding sorry for myself? Must be time to go home and watch the Cavs. I'll be feeling better tomorrow.

In the Zone

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:27:26 EST

Sorry – you have not heard from me in over a week. I'v been ‘in the zone” – writing zone, that is. Grant writing at the end is so engulfing that I tend block out major portions of my life – including this blog, evidently. Please forgive me. In fact, my family, please forgive me. My family knows that I come and go from these fogs and now they just kind of ride them out. They now know that the laundry will pile up and there will be no food in the house if they don’t do something about it. It's really kind of embarrassing how I can just zone out for days at a time when grant writing. Note, I do try and get rest, however. I have found that if I do not keep a decent sleeping schedule I cannot do good work on the grant. So, for me – I let other stuff go, but I try to get enough rest. Go Cavs!!

Dark January Days of Writing

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 10:02:22 EST

It is dark and deep here in Cleveland in January. Getting up early to write in the mornings means that you are doing it in the dark. It’s kind of painful for me – I am really not a morning person, but I seem to be too exhausted at night to work these days. I really would prefer to write for the June/July round of grants instead of the Feb/March round, then it gets light early and you somehow feel better about getting up early. …and if it would just stop snowing!

How Much Passion Should be in a Grant Proposal?

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 09:58:09 EST

It’s kind of a joke among my close faculty colleagues about how much “passion” I write into my grants. I see persuasive arguments being made in grants in lots of ways. Some people use lots of passion, others are strictly- to- the-facts kind of grant writers. I’m on the more passion end of the spectrum. Not that I use flowery language (a real no-no in grantsmanship), but I do like to raise some emotion about my area and for my project. It’s tough to strike the right balance, but the right balance can be very persuasive. I think the best way to test this is to ask others to read it – and then be open to what they say if they think it should be toned down.

It’s So Iterative!

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 09:48:45 EST

You’d think that something like grant writing would be so logical, so linear. It’s not. It’s a very iterative, unfolding process that takes lots of unpredictable turns. Mostly it is the going back and forth that is painful for me. I think our team has made a decision and that we will go with it, and then we change it. I guess a grant is really a complex puzzle. I usually use the analogy of a puzzle when someone asks me about grant writing. It’s a lot of decisions strung together that all interact with each other. Figuring out the intricate puzzle (and then making it appear so simple and elegant in your grant writing) is our “work” of grant writing - creating the elegant pattern of our good idea for the reader.

More Diversions

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:28:18 EST

Not good. I was cleaning my office today and even gave thought to cleaning out the linen closet at home. Since I hate cleaning, these are clearly diversion (yet socially acceptable) activities that I am doing instead of doing the hard work of writing my grant. I'm going to resist the urge to clean (or whatever) and write some simple section of the grant - maybe the inclusion criteria section - that will get me back into the grant writing.

Keeping Track of Draft Versions of the Application

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 12:25:09 EST

Actually, I have no suggestions at all for doing this. I do not keep track of grant versions. I only have one version – the one I am working on (and its back up). Near the end, I get paranoid and back up in several places – hard drive, memory stick, husband’s computer..... So, I do not have multiple versions of grant applications – if I do it just mixes me up and then I write on the wrong version or send the wrong one to someone who is working with me, and all the versions make my grant folder too long and wieldy to find things quickly. So, I don’t keep multiple versions of my application. There probably is some downside to this, however, and I welcome any comments on good ways to do this.

My Error!

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 12:18:25 EST

It was brought to my attention by a colleague (and reader of this blog) that I made an error in a posting – an important error – that I need to correct. Back at the beginning of December, I was discussing the new NIH grant forms for an RO1 application and I mistakenly said that there were 10 pages of the research strategy section. That was a mistake – it is 12 pages. You can access the new forms at: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/phs398/phs398.html
Thus, I am also revising what I said about my plans for allocating space for the grant parts for the research strategy section (comes after the one page specific aims_: Here is my rough thinking about that:
12 pp – 1 page significance/impact
.5 page innovation
1.5p. Background/ prelim work
.5p. Design and framework
6p. Population/Sample (rationale, inclusion and exclusion criteria, sample
selection method, sample size), Intervention protocol, Procedures, Measures
2.5p. Analysis/timeline/challenges
Sorry about the mistake. I apologize for any inconvenience this might have caused.

Third Draft of Specific Aims

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 09:43:24 EST

Here I am again – working on yet another draft of the specific aims. I am at that point of not being sure whether it is getting better or worse – time to send it out again to my team to look at. I need to move beyond this and do another section of the grant just to get a break from the specific aims. Certainly I know what this grant is about and the design, so I’m not going to obsess right now about the crafting of the perfect argument in the specific aims. By the way, I note that the new NIH format requires a discussion of the potential impact of the study findings in the specific aims section – that is new and I need to make sure I include it.

Getting My Team Together

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 09:31:28 EST

I am in the final thoughts of getting my team together. I start with my past team and determine what continuing expertise I need. I then write approach each about being on the grant – I don’t make assumptions that because they were on the last one that they will be on this one. Then, I think about what new expertise I need. By the way, I have the following caution – be careful about agreeing or asking someone new to be a collaborator from just a discussion with them. Often they are nice, personable – feel like a kindred soul – and you ask them and then you find out that on paper they don’t look so good – haven’t had a pub in 5 years, etc. You need to have a good team of investigators (it is one of the review criteria), so don’t make the mistake I have before and end up with people who won’t be good for the grant application success. I usually do a pub med search or ask for their biosketch before I sign them on to the project. Anyway, my team is together – I have a cardiologist, an exercise physiologist, a systems engineer, an economist, and a statistician.
By the way - for those of you who are new to grantsmanship - I still make "cold calls" to people who I don't know when I am looking for new expertise on a research project. The good news in that we usually get a good response from people when asked to help on a research project - they agree or they give you ideas of someone else who may be a better fit.

Only 7 more weeks

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 09:15:15 EST

Wow – where has the time gone – only 7 more weeks until this grant application goes out. Lots of things are coming together logistic wise – but I need to get more pen to paper! I have met with more of my sites. I met with my statistician also and it looks like I will need three sites for the project. The leadership people at my sites have been great. I am asking a lot in that this implementation grant involves changing their care to my protocol. A lot of clinical research depends on good relationships to make it feasible.

Post-Holiday: Back on Track

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:05:57 EST

Need to re-establish my grant writing rhythm again after the holiday. I like to think that the short respite away from thinking about the grant will provide me with new insights and energy. Yea, well, anyway… I have two strategies for getting back at it. One getting-back-into-the-swing strategy is to contact members of my team as soon as possible to talk science with them again following my discussion with the program officer. (He suggests that a 3-group design would be better than a 2-group design. Cha-Ching! I just see the money it will cost for the larger sample size!) My best way to get back on track working on the grant is to go back to my workplan see where I am on the grant writing timeline. As I have said before, I rely highly on my workplan to keep me focused and from panicking. Less than 8 weeks to go and a lot of work to be done.

Switching Zones

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:57:15 EST

It is 4:55PM on December 23rd. I am now switching zones from grant writing to family holiday. Merry Christmas!