Writing a Grant: Some Basics Landon S. King, M.D.

Why Should Anyone Write a Grant? Get money Forced organization of thoughts Get money Consolidate plans and support Get money “Educational opportunity” Get money

Writing a Grant: A Few Basics When is the time to put in a grant –Mandated –Elective –From idea to money: time to liftoff Who are you writing to? What’s their agenda? Applicant, context, project, environment Get help early: if you have 25 formatted pages it’s too late

It starts with the project… What are you studying? Who cares? Why does it matter? But it may be more complex… Candidate merits Project merits Larger program goals

Who reads these things? Grants are reviewed by overworked, under- appreciated, insecure faculty—meaning all of us, and you soon Imagine yours is one of 5-10 grants to be read, and the reader has two kids in soccer and lots of her/his own work to do Imagine that she/he is submitting grants too; maybe just got triaged That’s who reviews these So----Grab them, and make it easy

Writing a Grant: More Basics Start early Get the instructions Read the instructions

Grant Basics: Always four main concepts, maybe four sections Hypothesis / Specific Aims Background and Significance Preliminary Data Design and Methods

Hypothesis Better have one Statement of overarching question or theme, not the details of execution Specific aims should facilitate confirmation, or at least exploration, of the hypothesis

Specific Aims What do you propose doing to evaluate the stated hypothesis? Who cares? Opening paragraphs should justify the specific aims; shouldn’t be a mystery where the aims come from Aims should be constructed to address hypothesis 2-4 is usual number depending on grant

Background and Significance What information is needed to support the case for the hypothesis and aims? It’s not a literature review; you get to pick the supporting pieces, but …. better be fair Get to the point

Preliminary Data Better to have some no matter what the instructions say Data should support the aims Feasibility: Biological, technical Validity of the proposed hypotheses

Design and Methods Overview Timetable for execution of the work Aim by aim: what are you actually proposing to do for each study Make it easy to tell what the question and experiment are How much detail? Depends Don’t forget the extra stuff – power calculations, proposed animal numbers; analyses Potential problems and alternatives

Some words you don’t want to read … Ambitious Incremental Descriptive Diffuse Preliminary