All language subtitles for [English (auto-generated)] Introduction to Grant Writing Lecture 1 [DownSub.com]

Dr Glenn mcgugan will be speaking to you

today about finding suitable funding

opportunities and writing your biosketch

he focused on Cell Biology and paryt

during his PhD and completed a

post-doctoral fellowship at

ni as a program officer Dr mcgugan runs

Grant portfolios and determines

priorities for federal funds welcome Dr

mcgugan I turn it over to

you thank you so much for that warm

introduction I'm share my slides as well

if you cannot see them maybe one of the

team can let me know but hopefully that

works for everyone um first thank you so

much to the organizers for inviting me

and it's my pleasure looking at the chat

it's so nice to see people from all

different countries and so that's really

great as we go through the lecture today

I hope to present to you a little bit of

information about the NIH finding

funding opportunities and then writing

your bio sketch as well so as we go

through uh if you have questions please

put those in the Q&A and

during the lecture today I'll be asking

you to sometimes respond in the chat as

well as we go along right a quick

disclaimer just the materials presented

today are from my own perspective not

they should not be taken representing

the viewpoints of uh niid directly

they're based on my 16 years or so of

experience here and so hopefully you'll

find some of the information useful

today so these are the objectives we

hope to cover today and I won't read

them all to you but while you guys are

taking a look at that uh if you can just

write in the chat for me if you have

ever applied for funding from the ni

before so you can just sue a yes or no

yes I've applied for funding or no I've

not applied for funding from the NIH

just out of curiosity see what kind

of all right I'm getting lots of

NOS few yeses that's

good not yet

okay so good good so that gives me an ID

of of where you guys are and you're in

the right place so I hope to share with

you some information that hopefully

you'll find helpful um in today's

lecture all right so as you just heard

the NIH is the largest public funer of

biomedical research in the world their

mission here is science and pursuit of

knowledge to improve health and if

you're new to the NIH if you want to

learn more there's a link included here

you can find out a lot more information

about the NIH what we do what we support

and we do that $48 billion that you just

heard about mostly through extramural

research support so these 50,000 plus

competitive grants so that's really what

I'm going to focus on today so those

grants how you find them how you are

successful in competing for them all

right so if you're unfamiliar with the N

system if you've never applied then you

may be wondering where you should even

start you may be confused and so I hope

to demystify that for you

just a little bit today uh in the

lecture so from the applicants

perspective most people know that your

journey is going to start with some sort

of application and you're going to

submit that to the NIH and on the other

side you will get money hopefully or you

may have to try again so most people

know that part but it's this part what

goes on on the inside of the NIH that is

a bit of a mystery and I think

understanding that will help you to

navigate the process better so I know

there are other lectures where you're

going to deal more with the review

process in detail the applications and

all that but I wanted to give you just

an overview um of this whole process so

it starts with your idea and then based

on that idea you're going to plan your

application you're going to find an

opportunity for funding you're going to

write your application you'll submit

that electronically and then it comes

here for our peer review process that's

where the niit brings in external

scientists and they will rate the

strengths and weaknesses of your

application and then it'll go to one of

our advisory councils and then based on

that there will be a decision to fund

and hopefully you'll receive a notice

award on the other side of that now the

process can be quite lengthy so from the

time you submit until the time you get

an award could be as much as nine months

or more and that is if you're successful

on the first Tri try but often you may

have to resubmit your application and so

I say all that to say uh that you should

be patient and plan early to apply for

these particular opportunities that

we'll talk about so just as you just

heard the NH is actually not one

Institute but it's 27 different

institutes and centers and that's

important because each one of these has

their own mission they may have

different Grant programs that they offer

they may have eligibility differences

and so learning about the institutes is

a good way to figure out which one of

these might be the correct place for

your particular research topic

fortunately there are lots of people

here at the NIH that can help you along

the process first there are program

people those are people like me and I'll

talk more about my role later on but

they're also scientific review people

and those are the people in charge of

that review process I mentioned we also

have grants management Specialists so if

you have budgetary questions they can

help you with that as

well so one of the most common

misconceptions whenever I talk to people

who are not familiar with the N system

is that Grant awards are actually issued

to institutions and organizations rather

than to people right and because of that

it's really useful to establish a

relationship with your organization's

representative now sometimes these are

called your authorized representative or

your signing official they're often in

your business office for example and so

I would encourage you to establish a

relationship with them if you have not

and they especially if they've navigated

the NH system before so they can help

you out with that the other thing is

that every time you submit an

application it's going to be in response

to a notice of funding opportunity and

so we'll talk more about that the

specifics of that

later all right so regardless whatever

field you're in if you're in cancer if

you're in infectious diseases diabetes

research whatever you need to find a

competitive idea that's important to

your field of research it also needs to

align with the mission of the NIH and a

particular Institute assuming you're

applying to the NIH and it also has to

be unique and that means that it's not

already funded and so you may be

wondering well how do I know if it's

already funded how do I know how unique

it is well fortunately there is a really

useful tool it's called reporter so you

can find it here report. nh.gov you can

use the quick search or I recommend

using this advanced search here and you

can enter in your specific AES your

abstract sort of the topic of your

particular research idea and when you do

that you'll get an overview of similarly

funded projects and by doing that you'll

be able to spot under represented areas

and that's where you want to Target that

can be your Niche for applying you can

also identify experts in the field let's

say that you want to collaborate with

someone who is funded by the NIH maybe a

us-based investigator and so you can

also identify the most appropriate

Institute and even the most appropriate

program officer people like me so what

is a program officer well we are

scientists and administrators sometimes

we're called uh program directors you

may see that as well we provide

scientific expertise to a particular

Institute at the NIH we oversee these

grants that I'm going to tell you about

and importantly we interact with the

research Community just like I'm doing

today we help to identify the research

needs and advise investigators so I

would really encourage you to develop a

relationship with program staff here at

the NIH as you develop these ideas

because we can be really beneficial we

can serve as a great

resource so when you reach out to us

what kind of questions might you ask

well you may want to know if your

project is a good fit for the NIH you

may want to know if there are specific

funding opportunities on your particular

topic and you might want to know what

the most appropriate Grant type is maybe

you have no idea what you want to apply

for so it's really useful to reach out

to us now over my years at the NIH I've

found particularly for new and early

stage investigators International

scientists they're a bit nervous about

reaching out to a program officer for

the first time and I can tell you you're

definitely not alone if you feel that

way but from my perspective it's one of

the most important and rewarding parts

of my job helping people secure that

funding moving the science forward so

please don't hesitate to reach out to

one of us here at the NIH so the ways

that you can find us is if you know a

particular funding opportunity you can

always go to the funding opportunity and

you'll see it listed directly there

there will be a contact person and I'll

show you what that looks like later if

you have no idea you can also go to the

NIH Matchmaker so that's part of that

reporter tool that I mentioned earlier

and here when you enter your abstract

specific aims it'll give you a list of

the most appropriate program staff that

you can reach out to and then what I

would suggest is that you prepare a

brief summary something something like a

concept paper and then email us to set

up a time for a

meeting so a concept paper is really

just a brief summary of your project it

need not be too formal or the in uh

entire project um but it should contain

your abstract your aims what are the

goals of the study and if you know a

funding opportunity announcement you can

also include that and that way we can

tell you oh this is a good opportunity

for you or or maybe this doesn't really

fit with your particular um area of

research so now let's talk about finding

funding opportunities now I'm going to

focus mostly on the NIH because that's

where I work and ni ID but of course

some of these things will be applicable

for no matter where you apply for your

funding so I would like to pose a

question to all of you all right so

again you can write your answer in the

chat true true or false so type true or

false most in funding opportunity

announcements are only open to us-based

institutions true or

false

okay looking at the chat here seeing a

few true lots of

false all

right so many of you have done your

homework you're on the ball so this is

absolutely false so I find that when I

travel internationally particularly and

I speak with investigators many

scientists think this is uh true but in

fact many funding opportunities from the

NIH are open to non us-based

institutions and in fact there are a

couple of ways that you can secure

funding from the NIH as a non US based

institution that can be a direct award

which you heard about in the video and

there can also be a domestic award that

would be a us Award with a foreign comp

component so a collaborator now there

are strengths and weaknesses of each

with a direct award you get the full

budget but there are additional review

criteria and it requires special Council

approval but you can also be a component

of a us-based

investigator and so a portion of the

overall budget will go to you so you

don't get the full budget but the

trade-off is it's the standard review

criteria so it's a little bit lower

hurdle and if you're C ious about any of

these again you can always reach out to

NIH staff and we can help you navigate

which one might be the best for you I

usually recommend letting the science

dictate which of these might be the best

uh for your particular

situation all right so what about

finding the right funding opportunity

how do you find it and I would say that

you need to focus on at least three

things in my experience the first thing

is match where you are in your career so

so if you're a trainee the types of

Grant applications that you may apply

for are going to be very different from

a senior researcher or more established

investigator okay so the first step

where are you in your research career

step number two what kind of research

are you planning to conduct are these

pilot studies basic studies are these

Interventional is this a clinical trial

that you're planning to do that's going

to dictate which one of these Grant

types that I'm going to show you might

be most appropriate and then finally

number three match the funds that you

need so how much money and how many

years do you need so using these three

things you can kind of tailor your

search for a particular

area and fortunately the NIH has Grant

award types for pretty much your full

range of your academic career now I'm

only showing the PHD career here but

there's a also a track for an MD for

medical career or Allied health

professionals those are all available on

the NH website as well or you can reach

out to program staff and ask but as you

can see there are graduate student

awards so training Awards post doctoral

Fellowship Awards uh the transition

between post-doctoral Fellowship to

faculty and then even once you become an

independent Pi all right and there are

supplements available along the way as

well so I'm not going to tell you about

all the different Grant activity codes

but I did want to show you at least a

few of them to make you familiar with

the the types of Grants the nich offers

and so the research project Grant the

R1 this is the most common the oldest

grant program that the NH has and these

are typically five years um typically

less than $500,000 us per year and these

are for those discrete specific research

projects um the other is the exploratory

Awards these are the r21s these are for

new exploratory or developmental kind of

projects um these are limited for two

years it's a smaller budget but

importantly you don't have to have a lot

of preliminary data for these um the

other is a small grant program the ro3

these are also a much smaller amount of

money two years of funding but let's say

that you want a pilot or feasibility

study this might be the right program

for you then finally the U1 these are

like the ro1 except there's more program

involvement so let's say that you wanted

to do a large scale clinical trial um

then the U1 might be the

best all right so if you've not already

I would highly encourage you to look at

the NIH guide this is published weekly

and it contains a list of active grants

and also some contracts um and if you've

never gone here if you go to this site

you'll see something that looks like

this this so you can subscribe to a

weekly email list serve and by doing

that you'll get a weekly table of

contents and again this is going to be

grant opportunities across the NIH many

of them may not be relevant for you but

you'll be able to see them as soon as

they're posted the other place is on

grants.gov so if you go there you'll be

able to see the types of grants that are

posted there and then the important

thing as I mentioned earlier all the

applications have to be submitted in

response to a funding announcement so

you can't just submit an application to

the NIH that doesn't have one of these

announcements associated with it some of

these are going to be targeted and some

of these are What's called the parent

announcement let's just say you have an

idea there's no targeted solicitation

but you still can respond to one of

these parent R1 or parent r21

announcements all right so let's delve

into the NH grants and funding website

now now I'm guessing that many of you

may have navigated the site before but

if not I'm going to walk you through it

just a little bit and that's located at

grants. nh.gov and when you do that

you'll be taken to a site that looks

something like this you notice there's

lots of useful information here lots of

links but I want to draw your attention

to two places and since most of you in

the chat that I've noticed are from

outside of the us there's a link here

called foreign applications or non us

applications you go to this link it'll

provide information specific for non

us-based investigators a wealth of

information there additional links to

help you navigate the process the other

is going to be here the find grant

funding site and that's where we're

going to go to next okay so I'm a new

researcher I want to find grant funding

from the NIH I'm going to click this

link and I'm going to be taken to a big

big big list of all sorts of funding

opportunities now as I mentioned a lot

of them may not be

reference um they may not be of

relevance to you but what you can do is

type in the search box let's say that

I'm a malaria researcher and I'm

interested in malaria research so I type

malaria here I do a search and I'm going

to get a lot of these funding

opportunity announcements so I've

organized Mine by release date but you

can do it however you like and then

you'll be able to click of these links

and so let's say I read this

International research and infectious

diseases wow that sounds interesting to

me I want to see what this one's about

so I click this link and I'm taken to

one of those notice of funding

opportunity uh examples now not don't

want to belabor this because I think

you're going to delve into this much

more deeply in later lectures but I did

want to make you familiar with the parts

of this okay so understanding the

funding opportunity announcement will

really really help you craft a better

application and that's the goal you want

to be able to get funding for your

research so these noos contain two major

parts the overview and the full text so

in the overview part this is where

you're going to focus on the purpose and

the key dates those are the two areas

that you really want to hone in on the

purpose so this says high priority

research for international investigators

and infectious diseases I'm like wow

that's what I do so this may be for me

the next thing is you're going to look

at dates so when are the applications

due uh that's useful right so you can

see if you're able to get your data in

time to submit for those particular

dates all those are true then you may

want to move on to the full text of the

announcement now the full text will

start with a description this will give

you background information everything

you want to know and I would encourage

you to really delve into this read it

several times make make sure that you

understand what the people are asking

for at the NIH because this is how it's

going to be

reviewed the next section is the award

information it's going to attain a lot

of information but there are two areas

that you want to focus on the first is

the budget so how much money is this

particular funding award for and in this

case it's 125 and it's for a period of

five years so those are the two pieces

of information so when you read this you

can determine if this is enough money

for what you and length of time for what

you're planning to

do the next is going to be if you're

eligible so is my institution eligible

for this well in this case non us

institutions are eligible to apply this

won't always be the case so it's really

important to check that

okay next one is going to be submission

information all about how you submit it

the application guide things like that

and I show this example because in this

case sometimes they'll ask for a letter

of intent this is not usually required

but it really helps the NIH gauge how

many applications we're going to receive

and things like that and if the topic is

of

Interest now let's talk just a minute

about the review so when your

application comes in it's going to go to

that peer review as I mentioned and the

reviewers are going to be tasked with

evaluating your application and they're

going to be evaluating it on five areas

significance investigators Innovation

approach and environment so why am I

telling you that if reviewers are

looking at it well when you craft your

application you want to make sure that

you address each of these areas because

that's what reviewers are going to be

asked to address here at the NIH so

significance just means is your does

your project address an important

problem investigators are your

investigators well suited for the

project now this is where that bios

sketch comes in that's what the

investigators the reviewers are going to

use to determine if you're well suited

for the project and we'll talk about the

biosketch next okay Innovation does the

application Challenge and seek to shift

the current

research the approach is the approach

you're using appropriate to accomplish

the aims and then finally the

environment is the scientific will the

scientific environment contribute to the

probability of

success next are the contact information

and I show you this because as I

mentioned earlier all of the notice of

funding opportunities will have contact

information and so there might be

scientific contacts program staff uh

this happens to be one that I'm involved

with so you'll see my name here so you

could reach out directly to me with

questions questions let's say that you

have questions about submitting the

application well there are links for

that as well and then if you have

questions about the peer review process

you can contact the review contact and

if you have a questions about the budget

so what things are allowable what things

are not you can also reach out to the

grants management or financial

specialist all right so that is the

overview of the notice of funding

opportunities from the NIH okay

so identifying NH initiatives it's

important to note that each of those

institutes remember they have their own

mission and their own Grant programs so

in addition to checking that grants.gov

or the nich guide you can also go to the

individual institute's website let's say

that you are interested in cancer

research or diabetes research or

infectious diseases research then go

look at those particular institutes

websites read their web pages regularly

look at their strategic plan participate

in any workshops a lot of the institutes

will have workshops kind of like what

we're having today and if they have

webinars or things like that they will

address some of their latest funding

opportunities

there so this is the niid website which

is what where I work which I'm more

familiar with but all of them are going

to look similar to this they're all

going to have links like research

disease conditions and they all should

have a grants and contracts link just

like you see here and all of them should

list their funding opportunities and so

you'll be able to go to their sites

notice here the niid funding news

paylines timelines things like that okay

and some institutes including the NIH we

have sample Grant applications so if

you've never applied before this is a

great place a great resource you can see

applications that have been successful

and that way you will be able to tailor

your application in a similar way all

right so in the last part of this talk

let's focus on the NIH bios sketch the

biographical sketch so first of all what

is the NIH bios sketch well this is a

document that lists qualifications and

experience for a particular role on a

project okay

who needs it well everyone who is a

principal

investigator on an application must have

one of these to submit uh for the NIH

also any senior or key personnel that

are on your application they should have

a bios sketch and any other significant

contributors that's even if they're not

paid if they're collaborator things like

that they should also have a bios sketch

so why what is the purpose of this well

it's used by NIH staff as well as

reviewers to determine if you and the

people on your team have the experience

the techniques to execute the plan so

remember those five review criteria that

I mentioned one of those is investigator

so reviewers and NIH staff are going to

go to your bios sketch to see if you

have the proper qualifications for your

specific role on the

project now as I was looking through

some of the writing uh samples I wanted

to make sure that people understood the

difference between a CV and a bios

sketch I think this is really useful so

CV most of you are aware that this is

going to be a comprehensive history of

your work and your education it's a

detailed list of all of your academic

and professional experience and because

of that there's no link so if you're a

senior investigator these CVS can be

quite long that's different from a bios

sketch so the NH bios sketch Ed these

are going to be qualifications for a

specific role in a specific project so

you can think of this more like a

summary of your academic experience and

this is limited to five

pages now there is a template that's

available on the NH website so you can

just use that template and write it all

yourself or there's also a tool that's

available through the National Library

of Medicine I'm linking to it here and

with this tool you can enter your bios

sketch information once and then when

you get ready to apply for the

applications this tool will help you

format it for the particular application

to make sure you have all the components

that I'm going to show

you all

right so the NH bio sketch has several

parts we're going to go through them

very quickly here one by one so you have

the introductory part and then you're

going to have the personal statement the

position positions scientific

appointments and honors contributions to

science and then Scholastic performance

importantly it has to be five pages or

less all right in order for you to be in

compliance so let's start with the N

biographical sketch introductory part

now this is the easiest part right so

this is just going to be your name it's

going to be your education and your

training and your title so very similar

to what you would enter in just a

regular CV the only different thing here

is this the ER Commons username now if

you don't know what that is or you don't

have one then please reach out to the

NIH and we can help you establish one of

those because you will have to have one

in order to apply for ni funding you and

your institution will have to establish

this in order to apply because remember

all of the applications are

electronic all right so now let's go to

the personal statement so the personal

statement is why are you well suited for

your role in the project now this is

your place to be able to shine for this

particular project and I would say

please don't skimp on this section this

is an extremely important section and

it's a really big factor for review so I

thought I'd provide you with a few dos

and don'ts and best practices so on the

do side you want to list your training

and your expertise on the topic that

you're applying for same thing for the

technical expertise and past performance

that's in this field or a related field

let's say that you don't have previous

experience directly on this topic but

maybe you have it on a related topic

well that needs to go in the personal

statement as well you can site up to

four Publications or products now

Publications everyone knows what that is

a product can be a meeting abstract a

presentation you've made things like

that you can site funded projects from

the last three years now these are

typically

NIH applica uh NIH um grants or maybe

University grants or in Country Grants

that you've received and then this is

also the place you can list factors that

may affect your past productivity so

this is not required but let's say that

in your bios sketch there's a gap of a

year or two or however long and you want

to explain why there's a gap so maybe

you had family emergencies things like

that this is a place that you can

describe

that a few of the things that are don'ts

is you should not focus on unrelated

training or unrelated Publications or

products right a CV would have all of

these but a biosketch you really want to

focus on the ones that are relevant for

this application also don't use figures

tables or Graphics those are not allowed

and don't use hyperlinks like URLs those

are not allowed either and I would also

recommend not presenting your expanding

on stuff that should be other places in

other sections in the application all

right so that's the personal

statement let's look at a sample

personal statement let's walk through

this together and I'll point out the

parts for you and hopefully this will

help you write your own personal

statement so in this personal statement

right off the bat we see that this

person is an associate professor of

psychology their work is focused on

neuros pychological changes associated

with substance use disorders okay so

right off the bat we know what their

focus is what their background is they

have training in ethnographic and Survey

research on psychological aspects of

substance use disorder so we've seen

that

again a little bit later we see that

they've had funded projects right so

they've been the investigator or

co-investigator on NIH funded grants and

the focus of those grants has been

psychosocial factors substance abuse

disorders and older people they've also

collaborated with people they produced

peerreview

Publications and then as I mentioned

they had a disruption in their career

for a year and so they spell that out

too it was disrupted due to family

obligations right and so these are the

major elements your personal statement

is going to look different but these are

the elements that you want to

include now here's a question for you

BAS Bas on that if you're a reviewer and

you didn't even see the title of the

application what's the most likely topic

of this application if you just had to

guess so write it in the chat what do

you think is the

most likely topic of this

application I'll give you guys a minute

to type

that okay everybody's saying substance

abuse substance AB you here for old

people exactly exactly

and so that's what you want to focus

your personal statement for right the

reviewer should be able to immediately

see oh this person this is their

background this is what they focused on

and I'm betting this application is also

focused on substance abuse disorders in

uh older people and they back that up

with their projects so these are three

NIH projects that were funded and look

at the titles right so substance used

disorders in older people substance use

older people alcohol abuse and then they

list up to four Publications that you

see

here and what I want you to notice the

Publications are related to that and

they also are not the first author on

all of these Publications and that's

okay you don't have to be the first

author or senior author on these

citations they just need to be relevant

for this particular project

okay all right so what if you are a new

investigator or a trainee and you don't

have a lot of history you don't you've

not served as the pi of a project before

well that's okay this is an example of a

personal statement from a student you

could still highlight what your training

has been in what your goals are in the

future if you have any Publications you

can point to those as well particularly

like in this case small molecules

targeting colon cancer cells so let's

say the student seeking training in

cancer research well that's a really

good publication to highlight right

so a number of you submitted writing

samples as well and so this is one of

the writing samples this is anonymous I

don't know who this person is and it

doesn't matter um but I want you to take

a look at this personal statement from

one of the participants and we'll go

through some of the same elements that

we've seen before right so what we can

tell right off the bat is this person is

interested in medicine and Psychiatry so

maybe that's their background

right we found out that they had an A in

chemist in

chemistry we found out that they passed

their membership exams for the wacp in

their first

attempt we found out that they've made

significant contributions to

training and then we found out that

their goals are to increase clinical and

research competencies improve teaching

skills and advocacy for mental

health now with this one you don't have

to write this in the chat but based on

what you just saw you can kind of now

think of how I can craft this so that

someone could tell what the most likely

topic of the application is right so

it's a bit unclear maybe it's about

Psychiatry or medicine maybe it's about

training um maybe it's about chemistry

right we don't really know and so you'd

really want to spell that out you'd want

to be more specific into how this

particular personal statement fits in

with the particular project that you're

applying

for all

right so section B this one is going to

be like the beginning so this one is

very straightforward it's one of the

easier Parts this is just going to be

reverse chronological order of all of

your positions all of your academic

appointments and this is also a place

where you're going to list your

achievements and honors so if there are

any awards that you've received that are

relevant then you would want to list

those as

well all right the other important part

so a the personal statement and C

contributions to science these are going

to be the most important parts of the

BIOS sketch and the format of this part

is up to five of your most significant

significant

contributions it's okay to list list so

uh particularly if you're a trainee or a

student you definitely will probably

list less than five and for each of

those contributions you want to list

these factors right so what's the

historical background what are the

findings how did those findings

influence science what's your role on

that particular work and then you can

site up to four Publications or products

again don't use figures tables or

Graphics but in this case you can use a

hyperlink but only a link to all of your

Publications right because you're not

going to list them all here and so let's

look at a sample really quickly here so

contribution to science my early

Publications directly address the fact

that substance use is often overlooked

in older adults right so again

substantive use in older adults and

these Publications so they frame the

problem frame the background and then

here are the Publications I've had and

here are what those Publications

document mented right so I'm drawing the

reviewers to that particular area and

then I'm telling them this body of work

has Chang the standards of care for

olders adults with substance use

disorders so if I'm a reviewer and I'm

looking at this I have confidence that

this person has had nhf funded grants on

this particular topic they have

Publications on this topic and they've

moved the field forward in this

particular area and then they back it up

with some publication

that you can see here and again they're

not the first or senior author on all of

these right in this one they're the

second author maybe there's a

publication that you're not an author on

at all but you worked in the lab you

were involved in the research you can

list those as well here and you can just

describe how you were involved in that

particular

project all right so I'm not going to go

through them all but uh this person

listed up to three and with the public

ations but at the end they list their

complete list of published work in their

bibliography so this is the only

hyperlink that is allowable and it needs

to be a specific hyperlink like the one

from the National Library of Medicine

and again that will allow the reviewers

to go to all of your

Publications all right so the end is a a

bios sketch checklist for you and this

is as you write your bios sketch these

are the kinds of things that you can you

want to make sure that you include and

the first is my personal statement

showcases my skills so you want to make

sure that that's the case I convince

reviewers that I'm the right person to

lead the research

so in addition to that the other bios

sketches also need to convince reviewers

that the members of your team can

perform the roles all right so it's not

just you that has a bios sketch it's

going to be everyone on your team uh

that needs to have a bios sketch and

then you also make sure you highlight

each person's accomplishments and the

research support section and then again

the Publications that you choose make

sure that those are related to the

project and they reveal the skills that

you say you have for the particular

project and then finally your bios

sketches are consistent with other parts

of the application so that's what I

mentioned earlier um make sure that it's

tailored to this particular application

all right

so in looking at these checklist

questions um whenever you write your own

bios sketch give it to a colleague give

it to uh someone that you trust and have

them evaluate it and say Hey you know am

I touching on all these areas would a

reviewer see it in that

way the last few slides I'm not going to

go through uh I just want to let you

know that there are lots of resource

slides and you will have access to these

slides and so you'll be able to go to

these links there are links for foreign

grants so non- us-based Awards and also

the institutes and centers that I know

of that have web pages for foreign

recipients including the Fogerty

International Center that youve heard

from

earlier um in addition to the NIH of

course there are lots of other agencies

within the US federal government but

also external funding sources maybe in

your own country or private foundations

those are also places that you can go to

to look for sources of funding and then

here are several other resources

specific for the BIOS sketch and so

there are sample bios sketches there's a

frequently ask questions for bios

sketches and if you have questions about

a biosketch you can reach out to a

program person like me or if it's a more

general question the NH actually has a

dedicated email address and that's nhos

biosketch nh.gov so you can send your

question directly to that email address

and someone will get back with with you

on your specific question as

well then finally some take-home

messages I would encourage you to become

familiar with the missions the programs

and the funding opportunities of the NIH

as a whole as well as the individual

institutes and centers learn where to

look for these funding opportunities

like the NH guide the institutes

websites grants.gov

contact appropriate NH staff so if I

leave you with nothing else please

please don't hesitate to establish a

relationship with folks here at the NIH

who can help you navigate these funding

announcements um read the notice of

opportunity carefully because that's

what you're going to be responding to

that is the most common reason that

applications are withdrawn or they're

not successful when they come to the

NIH practice writing the NIH style bios

sketch and seek help with that and then

don't be afraid to ask colleagues for

help including us right and finally I

would say be persistent even if you are

a researcher in the

US the uh grant funding is competitive

and so you may have to apply multiple

times but I would tell you to be

persistent don't give up and don't be

afraid to ask for help along the way all

right so with that I will end the

slideshow I'll stop

sharing and I will guess open it to

Heather thank you so much Dr mugan we

have sure quite a few questions in the

Q&A so I will try to um find the ones

that were asked a few different times in

a few different ways and begin with

those and I will try to answer them

sounds good

okay um one is people asking again about

getting in touch with the NIH staff so

how can I have access contact with the

NH staff when I need clarification on

the grant submission process yeah great

question so there are a couple of ways

the first way is if you have a specific

funding announcement there will always

be contact information so you can go to

that contact information there'll be a

phone number and an email address so you

can reach directly out to them if you

don't know then I would suggest using

that Matchmaker tool right so you can

put in your abstract so I'm interested

in this aspect of cancer research and

you'll find a list of appropriate

program staff and that list will include

their contact information email address

things like that reach out set up a time

to discuss I think that's the best way

to do

it great thank you um another question

is can my chief medical director serve

as organization fcal

person can they serve as the

organizational focal person I believe

perhaps the contact person for the

applying organization ah I see I see

yeah so each institution the NH

establishes a relationship with a

authorized organizational official and

so it's going to be up to your

organization who that person may be

they're going to be called your signing

official they have to have the proper um

documentations the proper registrations

with the NIH to establish the

relationship and the purpose for that is

whenever you get a funded award then the

NIH has to have that relationship in

order to be able to send money and make

sure that you follow the rules and

regulations of using the US federal

funds and so I would just say that it's

up to your institution as to who that

person is and how they designate them

with the

NIH great thank you um we're also

getting questions about um early career

researchers is it easy for them to be

acknowledged by the NIH or is it more

difficult for them to um receive a grant

yeah that's a great question so with

most institutes within the NIH there is

a recognition that new and early stage

investigators sometimes have a larger

hurdle to be able to gaining their first

in award so most of them offer special

programs for new investigators sometimes

that's in a way of a more liberal

payline so that they're they're more

liberal with um allowing them to receive

Awards and in review they're also given

different review criteria so they might

be clustered together and so the

reviewers will be looked more be looking

more at your potential rather than your

previous productivity because you're new

right but there are lots of resources

that you can rely on you can reach out

to the NIH um there are programs that

are specifically targeted for new

investigators as well and so if you

contact a program staff we can help you

navigate that as

well great um this next one is about NGS

uh how can you determine if an NGO is

eligible to apply for an NA Brant and

what criteria must be

met actually there's a second question

so I'll give you that one first yeah so

in general if you go to one of those I

don't have it up now but that notice of

funding opportunity announcement under

the eligibility it'll I didn't show you

the whole list but it'll list all of the

eligibility requirements so it'll say a

governmental non-governmental

organizations universities medical

schools it'll give you the full list of

the ones that are eligible for that

particular uh application and if you

have a question about eligibility again

at the end of the funding opportunity

announcement there'll a contact person

and you can always reach to them I'm at

X University or X NGO am I eligible for

this opportunity and we can tell you if

you are or not okay um Can an individual

without a terminal degree apply for a

qualified International NGO

collaborating with a team member possess

sorry possessing a terminal degree for

an NIH Grant yeah that's another great

question so one of the most common

questions I get particularly from

internet AAL investigators is about

degree requirements so what is the pi

right so what is the pi on a particular

application so this is where the concept

of the nich grants the awards to the

institution rather than the individual

so from the nih's perspective the

institution is taking the responsibility

for saying this person has the lab space

the

qualifications necessary we stand behind

them to be able to execute this

particular research program so from the

NIH standpoint it's not required that

you have any particular degree right to

apply now just because you're eligible

doesn't mean you're going to be highly

competitive right so whenever that

application goes to review when they

look at the BIOS sketch they're going to

judge whether you have the proper

expertise and skills to be able to

accomplish what you say that you're

going to accomplish so those are two

aspects right eligibility from the

standpoint probably so competitiveness

that's going to depend on your

situation we're also getting questions

about individuals wanting to apply

versus an

organization um are individuals able to

apply or do they need that backing of an

organization yeah so that's another good

question so as I mentioned all the

applications even though you're going to

be listed as the pi they have to come

through some

organization right because the NH has to

have the established relationship with

your organization in order for you to

apply the only exception to that are

there are some very specific training

type Awards um that are more um portable

I guess for lack of a better word so you

can be awarded and it's a training award

that you can take with you to another

institution but by and large you have to

submit through a particular institution

so this is not like uh applying for a

scholarship or something like that right

where the money is going to be directed

to you these are all through your

institution by and

large and last thing I'll say is in that

eligibility part you'll see that as well

so you'll see eligibility for both the

institution as well as the people that

can apply okay thank you for the

clarification um why can it be important

to have an international collaborator

especially in the US to apply for a fund

with the

in yeah so where I work the niid we find

that we have a large well particularly

for parasitology where I work most of

the parasitic diseases covered by my

Branch are not indemic here in the US so

things like malaria for example and so

if I'm a US researcher and I want to

study a particular patient population

well I don't have malaria patient

population here I don't have the vectors

of that I could work with here and so

it's usually important for me to have a

collaborator in the country where that

particular disease

is endemic the other situation is let's

say that there's a specific technique or

a specific I don't know resource of some

other sort that is available only in

another uh country and so that person

could apply directly to the MH or they

could really bolster the application

from a us-based investigator interested

in that um to team with them and apply

that also is beneficial for you if

you've never navigated the NH system

before that's a really good way to get

your foot in the door let's kind of

understand the NH system is serving as a

collaborator with one of these us-based

institutions great thank you um what are

the application periods for

nhis and time periods are there going

are there varying time periods yes yes

so I gave the examples of a few of them

one was the R1 it's up to you to propose

so some people people propose three

years the maximum is five years for the

ro1 for the r21 it's going to be two

years the ro3 is two years some of the

training Awards could be three to five

years um but all of those will be

dictated by two things one is the

science you're proposing and two the

limitations that are outlined in the

funding opportunity itself so that's how

you can dictate

that yes there are limits there are time

limits

does the ni's scope include funding and

support for someone with a research idea

wishing to pursue a PhD yes absolutely

so we have training awards for

particularly for graduate students now

to be fair to be honest I gu up front

there are some I would say the majority

of the NIH wide ones require US

citizenship so those are really targeted

for us-based investigators but um most

of the um r1s are R 21s there's a place

for you to put students on that

particular award and so let's say that

you have a PhD student in your lab and

they are uh working on the project then

they'll get funds right for the grant

that you can use to train that

particular student and then there are

institutions that receive training

Awards as well U but the fellowship ones

that I mentioned like the f30 the F31

those usually have citizenship US

citizenship requirements um so but if

you have questions about those training

Awards Fogerty has several uh training

awards that are specific for non-

us-based investigators and so you could

reach out to them as

well right um is there a submission fee

for Grant applications there is not a

submission fee for Grant

applications okay

great let me look through a few more

looks like there is um someone wanting

to get clarification on the assumption

that one must have affiliation with the

NIH to get

funded okay yeah when I say affiliation

maybe I said that I don't know in my

talk but um what I mean is you have to

establish a relationship with the NIH

not necessarily an affiliation what that

means is there are certain registration

requirements so you have to have an erra

Commons account these are free

um you just go online you uh can apply

for those you can get those the same

thing for your institution so they have

to have certain registrations and the

reason for that is all of the

submissions now are electronic and so

for you to be able to apply

electronically you have to have a

registration information to be able to

apply for that and then let's say that

you get the award then the NH has to

have a way of getting that money to your

institution right so that's what I mean

by the established relationship that

they have to be able to communicate with

that institution electronically be able

to transfer funds make sure that you're

applying uh complying with rules and

regulations things like

that that makes sense um let's see I

believe you spoke to this but there is a

question about it um does the NIH

Institute published templates to guide

applications yes absolutely so you it's

ni wide uh actually grants.gov you can

find the NH normally uses the sf424

which is a a standard Grant type format

um some of the funding opportunity

announcements will also link you to um

the assist program all of those uh and

they will walk you through the every

single line that you need to include in

the Grant application and if you've

never done it before then I would also

encourage you to look at the sample

applications so niid has several sample

applications for all the different Grant

award types so the R1 the r21 the

training Awards all of those and so even

if it's not in your specific area it

would at least allow you to see um what

those different parts look like how

someone frames an NIH style

application great thank you um what

roles are available in a grant if I'm

not a pi or any key

personnel so from the NH standpoint the

pi is going to lead the particular

project and then Key Personnel is really

depending on you as Pi so who do you

deem as being necessary to complete the

aims of a particular project now if

you're not named as Key Personnel that's

okay you can still have a significant

contribution right there other

significant contributors so let's say

that you are a lab technician or you are

a graduate student or postdoctoral

fellow or things like that you may not

be named in the key personnel or named

as the pi of the award but the pi is

still going to have to list your

background and what you're planning to

do for the project in the application so

you'll still be a part of it and then if

you are when you go to write your own

personal statement and your

contributions to science for your

application then you'll be able to list

that well I served on this project here

was my role you know you can detail that

for the

reviewers thank you um what is the

minimum time for preparing an NIH

application is it possible to prepare

and submit an application in less than a

month yeah that's that's a good question

um it really depends on you my advice to

applicants is to plan early right and in

my experience a month would be

extremely challenging uh to be able to

do it within a month and I say that

because you want to make sure that you

have time to develop the

idea to frame it correctly to write the

application to share it with your

colleagues let them read through the

application to make sure that it makes

sense so if the goal is to make it as

competitive as possible then you want to

give yourself as much time as possible

and since the majority of you are going

to be submitting from outside of the US

the other thing that I usually advise

for international applicants is to plan

to apply early so if the application's

due on September 15th you should be

ready to go a couple of weeks before

that right and I say that because I've

seen cases where um the person submits

right at the due date and there's an

error message right something wasn't

right in the application and so the

system kicks it back well if it's at the

deadline you don't have time to fix it

and then the NH kicks it out and you

have to wait a whole other review cycle

in order to submit again so I would say

start as early as you can and submit it

and get feedback um I know that I'm

sometimes a procrastinator too so it

really depends on um you know your focus

but I would say yeah I can't give you an

exact timeline some investigators are

able to do it more quickly than others

um but please give yourself ample time

to prepare for it I guess is my best

advice and I think you guys have some um

Heather can tell tell us this but you

guys probably have some later lectures

where people will speak specifically to

timelines and what their experience is

in

applying yes definitely um is a bios

sketch required for everyone in the

project so a bios sketch is required for

certain people definitely the pi the

program director they have to have a

bios sketch anyone who is a um

significant contributor to that

particular project if they're Key

Personnel they're going to have to have

a bios sketch and even someone who is a

collaborator even if they're not being

paid so let's say that you have a

collaborator they're going to be like a

consultant or something like that if

their role is essential for the project

let's say that um you're planning to do

x-ray crystallography and you don't

really have experience in x-ray

crystallography so you need a consultant

to be able to help with that while the

reviewers want to know well who is this

consultant do they have the background

and experience for x-ray crystallography

you can't just say well Professor X is

going to do that and he knows how to do

x-ray crystallography right you need to

provide evidence that that person does

and so in that case I would suggest

providing a bios sketch for them as well

and a letter of support things like that

okay that makes sense um how does an

early career researcher come in

especially someone who hasn't been a co-

investigator or a primary investigator

before and it's

beening yeah it's challenging H to come

in for the very first time particularly

if you don't have a long track record

right and so that's what I was getting

at earlier when you apply in your bios

sketch specifically uh in your personal

statement you may not be able to point

to well hey I've served as Pi on these

three NH grants but you want to

highlight what your strengths are so

maybe you have been training in the lab

of Professor so and so

and through that training you learned

how to do

XYZ and these were the projects that you

worked on maybe these were projects that

were funded by your University or some

other source you can still list those as

long as you explain what your role on

those particular projects were same

thing for Publications let's say that

your name is not on the publication

even but you were the technician in the

lab and you did this series of

experiments well you can outline that

for the review viewers then that's

really important as

well hopefully that answers the question

I think so it's a tough one it's a tough

one uh if you're a novice in Grant

application does it lower your chances

of uh receiving the

awards yeah if you are a novice everyone

is a novice to applying for a grant at

one time remember that right everybody

has to apply for the first time and

there are even senior researchers who

have applied for NIH for 30 years that

aren't successful sometimes um the best

that I could say the best advice I can

give you is to practice and do it even

if there are small Grant applications uh

if you can serve as a collaborator on an

award and help write a portion of the

grant uh you want to get as much

practice as you can uh it's just like

applying for anything else right a

scholarship or Fellowship um in in your

institution or in your country um it

really depends on how skilled you become

at conveying your message now that being

said there are lots of resources that

are available you can look at the sample

applications you can reach out to

program staff like me um you can reach

out to senior researchers at your

institution who may have applied and

they can give you advice as well that's

the the biggest piece of advice for new

investigators that I give is don't be

afraid to reach out to colleagues

particularly more senior colleagues and

let them read your Grant application

someone that you can trust that's going

to

be provide critical feedback that

they're not afraid to tell you right

this is not good you need to revise this

part not someone who's gonna say oh yeah

this looks fine right you want to make

sure that they critically review this

and and and to improve your application

so yeah it is challenging but it is

challenging for everyone the first time

right but there are people who as a new

investigator they come in for the first

time and they get a really good score

it's a really exciting scientific

problem they frame the question properly

so it's not impossible uh to do

that the

encourag exactly worth trying right um

Can the erra commment username be issued

to an individual or only to an

institution yeah both so the erra

commons goes to Institute uh to

individuals so you will have your own ER

Commons account but your institution

will also have uh account for their

signing official whoever that person is

and so what happens is you will prepare

your application and then through the NH

system it'll go to your business office

and they will officially respond so

University X is applying to this funding

opportunity on behalf of Professor X

right and so your University the person

there will have to have an account but

also your institution will have to have

register ations and those are all

outlined on the NH website as well um we

probably don't have time to go through

them all now but again these are

registrations with the US federal

government and that's going to be

regardless if you get an NIH Grant or a

CDC Grant or wherever you get it you're

going to have to have these

registrations in

place all right um how would you phrase

the BIOS sketch if this is your first

grant in the subject

area yeah so I would encourage you to

look at some of the sample bios sketches

that are available on the NH website

because there's some for more senior

people and also for trainees uh if

you're not a trainee but this is the

first time you've applied for an NIH

award then you can Frame It That Way um

if you don't have awards that you can

point to that are your own uh you can

tell how you may have worked on somebody

else's award so if you've been doing

research you've probably been funded to

do it by some method either at your

University and that's okay to list that

as well so the project can be your

University let's say that you don't have

a lot of Publications but maybe you have

had

presentations at scientific meetings you

have abstracts to point to you can list

those as well so you don't even have to

list the Publications so you want to

frame your strengths as it relates to

the application that you're applying for

really if you just think about the

purpose of the BIOS sketch right and put

yourself in the mind of the reviewers so

I'm reviewing this application they say

that they're going to do

X right so how can I convince them that

I have the skills and the

background to convince them that I am

capable of doing X so that's what your

goal

is so here's one that's kind of wide

reaching um but in your experience what

is the hindrance factors for most of us

who failed to secure the

grant yeah it's going to depend on the

person there are some some common errors

that people do particularly for newer

investigators and even other common ones

that

are common for uh International

investigators right and so I would say

for the international investigators

since that's most of our audience is uh

just the lack of familiarity with the NH

system as a whole and so that's the

first place to start understanding how

to navigate the N system understanding

what the grants look like and then when

you go from there you can get rid of

some of these very easy errors and so

I've seen in the international

applications they enter the budget wrong

the application or uh the application

says you have to list this this is only

for three years and they list five years

budget and so the application has kicked

out and nothing to do with the science

it's just these kind of uh things that

you have to make sure that you follow in

the application now beyond that even new

investigators here in the US one of the

common problems that I see is that their

application is not focused so as a new

investigator even in the US uh the

you're very excited you have lots of

ideas very creative ideas and stuff that

you want to do for the next 30 to 40

Years of your career and you try to put

all of that 30 to 40 years into one

application and it's so Broad and it's

so diffused that it's hard for the

reviewers to evaluate it properly and so

I would advise you to think of a

discrete question that you want to

address that you can reasonably address

in the project period two years three

years five years whatever that project

period may be and then something that is

uh discreet that you can help to

accomplish within that time frame so

there's lots of other weaknesses but

those are probably the the most common

ones that I see from new

investigators thank you um I'm getting a

few questions about Google Scholar so

people are wondering if they can use a

link to that for their list of

Publications yeah at present at least as

I understand it I don't know if the NH

will kick it out but I would air on the

side of caution just to be safe because

the way that the BIOS sketch rules are

set up they allow the hyperlink but the

only example they give is the my

bibliography which is the National

Library of Medicine and it says

specifically the link has to have a.gov

after it I don't know of another doov

that accomplishes that so I would just

suggest using the ncbi link and it's

very as long as it's a published and if

it shows up in Google Scholar it's going

to show up in the National Library of

Medicine as well and so it should be

pretty straightforward to set

up okay that's great um if one has

applied for funding before and then

rejected said times does this negatively

affect their future um application

process review process yeah that's a

really good question and I would say

that uh in short no it does not so every

application is viewed on its own merits

and I'll give you some examples where

sometimes a new investigator will come

in and they get funded on their first

try very lucky and sometimes it takes

them five or six times to be able to get

reviewed on that uh to get funded on

that and then I have senior

investigators who have been funded in a

particular area for 25 years they submit

an application and they don't get funded

right and so every application is viewed

on its own merits and so that's the way

to think about it so with the NH system

now you can submit the application and

if you are not successful on the first

try most of them offer

resubmission and so you're able to look

at the criticisms that you get change it

in response to those criticisms and

resubmit it again once you submit it the

second time then you can't resubmit as a

resubmission again but you can still

submit it as a new application take

under advisement the the kinds of

critiques that you got in that one and

then submit a new application that new

application is going to be just that a

new application the Slate is wiped clean

the reviewers are going to look at it on

its own merits every time

okay that actually speaks to my next

question was if a particular application

is rejected can it be repackaged and

absolutely absolutely there's the one

resubmission but there's no limit as to

how many times you can submit it as new

right you can submit it as many times as

you need

to let me see I think we have time for

one more question we're coming up on the

hour

now

um oh can some someone send in two

applications for the same Grant oh yeah

that's a really good question I did not

touch on that yeah so um you can submit

more than one application at a time as

long as the topic of the applications

are distinct all right so I cannot

submit the same scientific topic to two

different funding announcements at the

same time they can't be under review at

the same time the NH will if they notice

that then and the division of receipt

and referral they're the ones who get

the applications I don't even see them

when they come in they go to the

different shop first and if they're

distin uh similar to the one that's

already under review then they'll be

kicked out so make sure that you don't

do that please do not submit them both

at the same time on the same topic if

they're distinct you can and then the

other thing is you can dovetail them so

let's say that there's one that I'm

going to submit for one particular topic

and there's another that's it's a

similar topic but another funding

opportunity announcement there's some

overlap between them I would suggest

kind of like staggering them right so

submit one first allow it to go to

review and then you can submit the other

one um just make sure that there there's

no scientific overlap between them that

would cause them to be kicked out and if

you're curious about it you can always

reach out to the NIH and say hey here's

my ideas I'm going to submit to both of

these funding opportunities is this

allowable and we'll we'll tell you so

that you don't waste your time

and potentially get both of them kicked

out you definitely don't want that yeah

it was a pleasure and U look forward to

working with you guys again soon