Applying for a Grant Grant Writing Made Simple

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Applying for a GrantGrant Writing Made Simple?
Heather Stuart, PhD, Community Health
Epidemiology, Queens University
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Main Focus of This Session

• Grants that are
• Externally funded clinical, epidemiological, and
  health services research
• Not randomized controlled clinical trials that
  are primarily industry funded
• Competitions that require the investigator to
  write a grant proposal that will be reviewed by
  a
• Peer review committee composed of scientists
• Merit review committee composed of scientists and
  decision-makers
• Main feature is a highly competitive process

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Granting Opportunities

• First Tier Tri-Councils National Foundations
  
• Canadian Institutes of Health Research (Open
  Grants/Strategic Initiatives)
• Theme-Based Institutes
• Four Cross-cutting Pillars (Basic, Clinical,
  Population, Policy)
• Social Sciences Humanities Research Council
• National Sciences Engineering Council
• Canadian Health Services Research Foundation
  (Knowledge Transfer)
• Second Tier
• Provincial Granting Bodies (Research Foundations)
• Government Departments
• Third Tier
• Special Foundations and Trusts
• Advocacy Organizations (Cancer Society
  Schizophrenia Society)

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The Ideology of Health Research

• Evidence Based Medicine
• Evidence Based Services
• Evidence Based Policy
• Accountability and Cost
• Usability of Research Findings
• Knowledge Transfer
• Research Teams
• Multidisciplinary
• Industry Partnerships

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The Ideal Review Process
Proposal
LOI
Peer/Merit Panel
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The Real World Review Process
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Proposal
LOI
80
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Grantsmanship the art of getting
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Purpose of a Letter of Intent

• In five pages or less, convince a committee of
  generic experts to request a full proposal
• Rigorous conceptualization of what you want to
  do
• Interesting idea ( fits with the Call for
  Proposals)
• Methods are appropriate to the question and will
  give valid results
• Study is feasible
• Appropriate team
• Consider the match between the question and the
  funder
• National granting agencies are interested in
  nationally relevant findings
• Provincial agencies are interested in findings
  that can be applied in the Province
• Local agencies may have specific strategic
  objectives

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Purpose of a Proposal

• Convince a committee of generic experts that your
  team deserves to be funded instead of someone
  else
• Develop a highly persuasive and polished argument
  that your proposal will make an important
  contribution
• Critical appraisal of the literature
• Literature syntheses
• Address three issues
• What do we know?
• What dont we know?
• How will this study make a difference?

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Purpose of a Proposal continued

• Use the best methods available, not the method
  that is most feasible for you
• Study design (name it!)
• Data collection measures (precision and
  quality)
• Analysis plan (matched to objectives)
• Ethics
• Budget
• Knowledge transfer plan
• Create a strong team (cover all areas of
  expertise required to complete project)
• Insure institutional environment administrative
  capacity (research clearances)

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The Proposal Must Answer Several Questions

• What is your purpose (aims and objectives/hypothes
  es)
• What are we going to learn (that somebody else
  doesnt already know)?
• Why is it worth knowing?
• How does the study contribute to scientific
  theory?
• How can the findings be used?
• How will we know that the conclusions are valid?
• Strengths
• Biases
• Steps taken to identify and reduce biases

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So What? The contribution argument

• The research has never been done before
• Be absolutely sure this is a correct statement
• Insure that you address the counter argument that
  there may be a good reason for that!
• Some or much research has been done but you will
  reassess it in a way that will give new insight
• Systematic errors in current research
• Lower power study designs
• Replications studies dont automatically justify
  themselves
• A combination of the two (most research)
• Some new material that will help in reassessing
  the existing field

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Scientific Merit

• Methodological difficulties will not necessarily
  kill a good idea at the LOI stage, but
• Vague, ill-defined, and overly ambitious study
  designs, or black-box statistical analyses
  suggest a lack of focus and may raise doubts
  about the ultimate usability of findings
• Reviewers wont second guess your methods
• Statistics dont make the LOI!
• Projects that are heavily dependent for their
  success on yet-to-be developed study instruments
  usually cause concern.
• Sequential projects are tricky to fund
  particularly if the first step is vague or
  difficult to achieve

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Projects or Programs!

• One question only
• Research programs study a series of questions
  that build on each other or are interrelated in
  some way
• For seasoned teams only
• May end up looking like a tangled mess
• One question usually translates into one study
  design and one method of data collection

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Know Your Committee

• Peer Review or Merit Review?
• 2-3 Members will be assigned to review your
  proposal in detail
• External reviewers may also be solicited to
  provide written reviews
• Committee reviewers (and one additional reader)
  will present your proposal, their numeric rating,
  and justify this rating with reference to
  strengths and weaknesses
• Yours will be one of many that the
  reviewers/readers will have been assigned
• Committee members (who have not read your
  proposal) will ask questions
• Committee reviewers must defend their position
  and/or your proposal
• They need to be able to find details quickly to
  respond to questions
• They need to be able to direct other committee
  members to relevant sections to support their
  explanations
• Everyone votes!

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Help Your Reviewers

• Suitable for a multi-disciplinary team of
  scholarly individuals who are not knowledgeable
  about your area considering
• Incomprehension between disciplines
• Same words, different meanings
• Workload of reviewers and committees
• Fairness in judging proposals difficult if they
  cant be understood or if format deviates from
  the norm
• No short forms, acronyms or jargon (NEVER, EVER)
• Write clearly purge spelling or grammatical
  mistakes
• Numbers must add up!

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Help Your Reviewers continued

• Follow proposal instructions for length, font,
  margins, and auxiliary materials
• Make the proposal easy to read
• Compartmentalize information in sections
• Provide navigation through sections with headings
  and sub-headings
• Headings and sub-headings should tell the story
• Leave white space (spacing between headings and
  smaller paragraphs) even if this means you have
  to be more concise
• Avoid wall-to-wall text in an effort to squeeze
  in every last thought
• If it looks appealing, and it is well structured
  it will be
• easier to read and review
• easier to defend, and
• convey the impression that the team is well
  organized and thoughtful

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Re-submission Tips

• Expect to be turned down the first time
• Aim for an invitation for resubmission
• Address reviewer comments (consider them free
  consultations)
• Dont express anger, arrogance, or hurt
• Seek outside help to improve your proposal
• Strengthen your team
• Re-conceptualize, re-think re-focus
• Learn from your mistakes!

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Policy-relevant results

• Communication strategies that foster stakeholder
  participation, ownership, and uptake are
  important, and in some cases, essential.
• Traditional communication strategies oriented to
  academic audiences should never be the primary
  mode of communication of policy relevant results.
  
• There is growing belief in a collaborative model
  as the best basis for communication.

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Involving Stakeholders

• Decision-maker/researcher collaborations that do
  not pre-date the current proposal show that
  important linkages have not been made, and may
  not last beyond the instant.
• If stakeholders can articulate how results will
  be used to support policy development or program
  delivery (such as in letters of support), the
  peer review committee will be more convinced of
  the studys practical importance.
• Cookie-cutter letters of support (usually written
  by the researcher) from decision-makers suggest
  that linkages have not been made, and raise
  doubts about uptake of results.

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Most proposals fail because they leave reviewers
wondering what the applicant will actually do.
The Art of Writing Proposals, Social Science
Research Council, New York http//www.ssrc.org/Art
prop.htm
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Research funding is for.

• Salaries for research assistants, students, and
  trainees
• Operating costs of data collection
• Travel costs for data collection and limited
  travel for presentation to conferences
• Costs of dissemination of results (knowledge
  transfer)
• Workshops with policy makers
• Non-technical publications
• Web pages
• Dont pad your budget
• Add student stipends
• Expect budget cuts

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Research funding is NOT for

• Salaries for Principal Investigators
• Extensive travel
• Overhead (rent, furniture, some types of
  equipment)
• Special capital grants are available through
  alternate competitions
• Other goodies

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In Summary

• A good proposal is a well crafted logical
  argument that
• Your idea will contribute to knowledge or
  practice
• Your data collection and analysis plan is as
  strong as it could be
• Your team is the best available to meet the
  challenge
• You are able to anticipate and address emerging
  challenges
• Your team can communicate the findings to
  appropriate audiences in ways that will promote
  their appropriate use