Archive for the 'Grantsmanship' category

This doesn't sound "mean" to me

Mar 27 2012 Published by under Grant Review, Grantsmanship, NIH Careerism, NIH funding

Some commenter at Rock Talk complained about a recent grant review:

I just received the most terrible of reviews, where the reviewer was not only biased but highly inflammatory, prejudicial and aggressive. I must say I was totally taken aback. When you say things like “…terribly convoluted approach”,…”PI has clearly no clue…” how something works, trashes my published work by saying these pubs “are a gross exaggeration”….the list goes on and on. Even as a relatively senior investigator, I was very shocked by the mean-spirited nature of the comments. I cannot imagine how it would destroy a new investigator.

I am having trouble seeing it. I mean sure "no clue" is directed at the applicant rather than the application, but it's pretty tame stuff. If a reviewer thinks your papers exaggerate? Presumably in wild speculative interpretation that runs beyond your data? Seems okay and even obligatory to express this. The "terribly convoluted approach" comment is a pretty inoffensive way to get to the heart of this common failing of grants as well...I'm not seeing how you could put it more "nicely".

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NIH Advice for Noobs on the Twitts today

Mar 19 2012 Published by under Grant Review, Grantsmanship, NIH Careerism

Your roving reporter, @doc_becca (of the Fumbling Towards Tenure blog) has a few observations rolling under the #NIHsekrits hashtag on the Twitts today. Check it out.

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7 responses so far

Why would you want to leave points on the table when your NIH Grant is reviewed[1]?

Jan 24 2012 Published by under Grant Review, Grantsmanship, NIH Careerism

It is well established that approximately 85.473% of the battle when it comes to NIH Grantsmithing is making it easy for the reviewers to grasp your point[2].

Really easy.

Many bloggers have described the fact that you need to think about your audience. The grant reviewer in my mind's eye is an overworked, grant-stressed, paper-decision-major-revision, lab disaster supervising PI who has finally cracked your grant open at 10 pm after putting his kids to bed, throwing some laundry in, running the dishes and making lunches for tomorrow's schoolday. . Plus, she may have an infant squirming and latching on poorly at the same time. Still licking wounds from the last disappointing summary statement from his or her own grant application.That's if you are lucky.

If you are unlucky she is getting serious about reviewing your grant while crammed in coach on the way to Bethesda for the actual meeting. And is planning on submitting the written critique the moment she hits the free wifi at the airport....

Then, should your application be so lucky as to be discussed, realize this, Dear Reader. The three assigned reviewers may have had the time, if they had the inclination, to pour over your application at leisure.

The rest of the panel? Not so much.

It is the rare reviewer who has read through the entire panel's worth of applications in detail. And if there appears to be a disagreement between the three assigned reviewers during discussion, these other reviewers have something on the order of 10-15 minutes to scan through your application to attempt to resolve matters in their own mind.

You want their job to be as easy as possible. This is why I hammer away at the creation of blank space, headings, clear figures and direct writing. You know this. What many people don't seem to realize is that your selection of citation style matters as well.

A lot.

Some folks seem to think that it doesn't matter[3] or that the NIH insists on numbered citation styles[4].

[As a bit of a sidebar, before I go too deep, there is absolutely nothing about grant review that is fixed in stone. So if you know people who always use the numbered citations and get funded[5], bully for them. But realize they got the award despite a lapse in grantsmithing[6], not because it is unimportant.]

Back to our story, it appears some of this confusion may be attributable to Endnote, as one authority claims that the Endnote style for "NIH" is numbered[7,8]. I have recently tested this on my Endnote X4 for Windows and I find this assertion to be untrue. My style for NIH (default installation) is Author, Date style, not numbered.

but still. If you have some version of Endnote that has a particular style for "NIH" don't you think you'd better check to see what the rules say? I mean, you could have a template grant from some idiot that uses Georgia font but you know to put it in the Arial, no? Or if your sample page is in 12pt font, you go and see what the rules actually say, right? So why would you take what some non-NIH entity says about the style for citation? I mean, you could ask the Twitts[8a]...but why not check the source [9].

Provide a bibliography of any references cited in the Project Narrative. Each reference must include the names of all authors (in the same sequence in which they appear in the publication), the article and journal title, book title, volume number, page numbers, and year of publication.

emphasis added- no reshuffling of "co-contribution" authors permitted!

also,

When citing articles that fall under the Public Access Policy, were authored or co-authored by the applicant and arose from NIH support, provide the NIH Manuscript Submission reference number (e.g., NIHMS97531) or the PubMed Central (PMC) reference number (e.g., PMCID234567) for each article. If the PMCID is not yet available because the Journal submits articles directly to PMC on behalf of their authors, indicate “PMC Journal – In Process.”

That's it though. No mention of a required citation style or of a bibliographic style, so long as the pertinent information is included.

Now, I know why you are tempted to use the gawdawful numbered citations. You think you are saving space and can squeeze yet more blabbedy-blah text in there to overhwhelm the reviewers.

Resist the urge.

It is hard to read academic text with numbered citations if you are actually using the citations to create the argument in your mind. Now maybe I am weird. But for me, especially in my subfields of interest, Name, Date for a paper citation is sufficient cueing to dredge up any number of details about the paper in question. With a mental image of the findings, interpretations, etc. Call me crazy, but your random schema for numbering the references doesn't do the job.

Even if I flip back and forth between my place in the text and the reference list, I've probably forgotten what the hell [254] refers to a paragraph later. There is a prayer that (Schmelmitz et al, 1968) will trigger me to remember the paper without any need to flip to the citation list at all. And I'll likely remember which one you mean, if I've flipped back to check the full citation, for longer than a few sentences.

Oh, and speaking of flipping to the Bibliography. Much easier to do with hardcopy grant applications. Much harder to do when reading the PDF on a computer. Maybe there are some fancy double pane views but I sure as heck don't use them...are you gambling your average reviewers knows some way to do this?

So numbered citations are a clearly inferior way to cite an academic work. In fact, when I am the boss of science, whomever came up with this or perpetuates it as a good way to cite papers is going to be in the second group up against the wall[10]. They make it hard for the reader to figure out what work you are citing. Let's face it, you aren't wasting the space to explain the prior finding, either, are you? You are using the mere citation itself in hopes that it makes the point for you! Why would you want to make it hard on the reviewers? It's only going to annoy them.

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[1] Drugmonkey, 2012

[2]DrugMonkey, 2012

[3]Dr Zen, 2012

[4]Luminescer, 2012

[5]Luminescer, 2012

[6]Drugmonkey, 2010

[7]ericsuh, 2012

[8]ericsuh, 2012

[8a]Namnezia, 2012

[9]Application Guide for NIH and Other PHS Agencies

[10]Unless they are also a GlamourMag editor, then they go with their regular group[11].

[11]"First"

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"Hey Professor Grey Fox, how come nobody ever....."

Jan 17 2012 Published by under Careerism, Grantsmanship, Postdoctoral Training

eli rabett observed in a comment to a prior post about reading the literature that

Graduate training is designed to pass lore from advisers to students. You learn much about things that didn't work and therefore were never published [hey Prof. I have a great idea!...Well actually son, we did that back in 06 and wasted two years on it], whose papers to trust, and which to be suspicious of [Hey Prof. here's a great new paper!... Son, don't trust that clown.] In short the kind of local knowledge that allows one to cut through the published literature thicket.

This is true but one can't take it too far. Lab lore can be another term for superstitious behavior. It is possible that "the way it works" is really just one of many ways to get something to work...and perhaps not even the best, most efficient or most clearly interpretable way.

There is another realization that comes along with time and reinforces the suggestion to ask senior professors things but not to actually take their angle on the matter.

As you move into early and middle independent career you may find yourself asking the senior Professors why X finding was never followed up on when you run across a fascinating bit of data in the old literature. Or perhaps you will ask whether Y was ever observed after having a "gee that's not supposed to happen" moment in your own studies. Maybe you will need to inquire why the field does it like Z instead of the way that makes most sense to you.

This can turn into a research program or two if you are paying attention. Sure, if you ignore collective wisdom that doesn't necessarily appear in the published literature, you run the risk of wasting much time re-inventing the wheel. I've done that too. And I will admit that there are several of the most curious leads that I have run across that I simply have not managed to turn into a research program yet.

However. There are ideas such as these that have turned into at least a R01 level funded project and resulting papers.

So don't necessarily take the good Professor's word that "I think Professor Schmoe did that back in '68 and didn't get anything" as being the end of your inquiry.

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Objectivity for your own proposals

Oct 04 2011 Published by under Grant Review, Grantsmanship

Do you re-read the NIH grant proposal that you submitted in the summer a re-read as we approach the Fall rounds of study section meetings?

One would think that after getting a little distance from the writing of it, that the PI could be a little more objective. Step back and read it like a reviewer would. And therefore predict the eventual outcome with some accuracy. In theory this would make one's anticipation of the score showing up in Commons a little more..muted.

Yeah, I don't know anyone who can do this.

How about you, Dear Reader? Do you know anyone who looks at their proposal in the month before the study section meets and can be objective about the chances?

Final thought: Would it be useful to get the trainees to write critiques and see how they match up with the real ones?

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PA! Huh. What's it good for? ....absolutely nothin! Say it again, PA!

Sep 27 2011 Published by under Ask DrugMonkey, Grantsmanship, NIH, NIH Careerism, NIH funding

A query to the blog is a very typical reaction of those new (and not so new) to the NIH Grant game. As you will see in my answer. First, the question:

I'm now confused about this whole Program Announcement thing. The PO said that my application would be judged normally, just as part of whatever else the study section was reviewing, and that there was no special money set aside for the PA. If that's the case, what's the point of the PA in the first place? I had been under the impression it would be judged with other grants responding to the PA, but apparently that's not true.

Help?

It is the RFA that generally routes applications into a dedicated, special emphasis panel type study section for review. For those Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOA) there is indeed a set aside pool of money and generally just a single receipt date. The PAS (Program Announcement with Set Aside Funds) also has dedicated funding, generally for the first round of submissions, then it converts to a regular old Program Announcement (PA) type FOA. Applications submitted for a PAR (Program Announcement with special receipt, referral and/or review considerations) is reviewed by a special panel, generally within an IC.

Regular old PAs are open for 3 years and generally use the standard receipt dates. In the ICs of my greatest experience they tend to be renewed and thus may represent essentially permanent PAs for much of your grant writing life. As per the reader query, the applications are reviewed in standard, CSR study sections with the appropriate domains of coverage and expertise. Alongside those applications that use the generic, mechanism based FOA. I would argue that you would only use the latter if you had to. Again, in the ICs of my greatest experience the PAs can be incredibly broad. Take "PA-10-268 Neuroscience Research on Drug Abuse (R01)" as an example. If your IC of interest has such broad topic PAs...you might as well use them.

Now as the reader question intimates, there is no overtly special benefit to your chances of getting funded. And there may be no benefit at all. Hard to tell. Because of course this sort of business only matters* when Program is considering the grey zone pickup funding. Is there a slant or a formula for how many approximately equivalently scored grants they will select under one of their PAs versus the generic parent FOA? I would suspect so, else why have such things? But I can't say for sure. Maybe it is just make work for Program staff....to lay out their priorities. Or maybe it is a defensive excuse for those rare cases when they decide to stiff a grant that came in under the payline "Sorry PI Squirrel, it didn't fit any of our Programmatic Interests...don't you read the PAs?".

The bottom line here for those new to the system is not to get all that excited when language in a PA seems directed at your research program. It isn't *that* good of a bennie. But you might as well have some idea what is in the PAs and respond to them when you can. Because you just never know when it might help.
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*assuming you have a modicum of sense and are not submitting stuff that is clearly not going to be of interest under the generic R01 parent FOA.

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Don't tense up

Sep 25 2011 Published by under Grant Review, Grantsmanship, NIH

If you've been going through a run of disappointing grant reviews punctuated by nasty Third Reviewer comments, you tend to tense up.

Your next proposals are stiff...and jam packed with what is supposed to be ammunition to ward off the criticisms you've been receiving lately. Excessive citation of the lit to defend your hypotheses...and buffer concentrations. Review paper level exposition of your logical chain. Kitchen sink of preliminary data. Exhaustive detail of your alternate approaches.

The trouble is, then your grant is wall to wall text and nearly unreadable.

Also, all that nitpicky stuff? Sometimes it is just post hoc justification by reviewers who don't like the whole thing for reasons only tangentially related to the nits they are picking.

So your defensive crouch isn't actually helping. If you hook the reviewer hard with your big picture stuff they will often put up with a lot of seeming StockCritique bait.

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Ponder

Sep 25 2011 Published by under Day in the life of DrugMonkey, Grantsmanship

My grant writing episodes are always punctuated by days in which nothing gets accomplished and days of nearly obscene productivity and progress.

It is never clear to me why I cannot have all of the latter.

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It is September. And that means...

Sep 03 2011 Published by under Grant Review, Grantsmanship, NIH Careerism

The study section meetings are coming up soon!

Your last chance to update your grant with news of any papers that have been accepted since you submitted the application. Don't forget to ask your collaborators.

That's the only active step, really. Now it is on to the handwringing!

Re-read that proposal of yours? Aren't all the flaws obvious!?!!!? Aiieee! Doomed!

Wait....damn that's a fine scientific idea right there. If you do say so yourself. Maybe those fine folks on the panel will see it the same.....

Say. The final rosters go up 30 days prior to the meeting. So can't wait for that bit of info. Which ad hoc reviewers were added? Who is newly appointed to a permanent term? Wonder which 6 yr termers will be attending this round and which not?

Aaaagh, your strategy of submitting a manuscript to a journal which just happens to have an Associate Editor who was supposed to be on the study section just fell flat!

Chew fingernails.

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Structural Aspects of Revising Your NIH Grant

Aug 29 2011 Published by under Ask DrugMonkey, Grant Review, Grantsmanship, NIH, NIH Careerism, NIH funding

A recent query to the blog emailbox echos things I occasionally see on the search traffic leading to the blog and that I deal with IRL. It asks about the more structural aspects to revising a NIH grant application that has been unsuccessful. In the most recent case it is coming from someone pretty junior who has been asked by the PI to learn how to accomplish this task. (I think that's weird, of course, this is the PI's job in my view but so it goes.)

One of the best starting places for getting in the proper mindset to revise a NIH grant is to think about the review process. There are a couple of key aspects that I didn't pick up on until I was actually doing reviews and a couple that I knew but didn't understand how to incorporate that information.

You are aware that in most cases your grant will go back to the same study section...but sometimes it will not. It will likely go back to at least one reviewer that has seen it before, but also to at least one reviewer new to the application. It is not impossible to get all three retreads or all three new, btw. The reviewers will see the summary statement from the prior review but not the application itself. This last is absolutely key.

You also have to keep in mind that any prior reviewers (and it is not impossible that members on the panel may have read your application closely even if not assigned as a reviewer) may of course remember your proposal. They may also have, illegally, retained a copy in their files to which they may refer.

With that as background, structurally speaking the revised application is duck soup. Here's what I recommend based on my own approaches and a distilled impression from reviewing grants that I am far from alone in this approach.

At present you have a one-page "Introduction to the Revised Application" to work with. Before the shortening of the R01 application, you had three. Space is most assuredly at a premium in the present era.

You should start off with a sentence to the effect of "This is a revision of IC031666 reviewed in Panel VWXYNot in Feb of 2011 where it received a priority score of 31 and a percentile rank of 26%".

Recall that while any reviewers who were present at the prior review know the post-discussion score range, they do not know how the mean of the panel went down, nor the all-important percentile rank. I think it a good idea to get this in their minds. Yes, yes, scores are not supposed to be benchmarked on the prior score but let me tell you this is a nearly inescapable psychology of some reviewers.

Next you will be inclined to polish the apple a little bit. Don't. You simply don't have room for that crap, nowadays.

The less-obvious no-no is that you will be inclined to reiterate some of the more glowing and approving comments made by the reviewers. I used to do this...

"We are gratified that Reviewer #2 found the PI's laboratory 'uniquely qualified' for the studies and Reviewer #1 thought the Approach was elegant and ideal for..."

...and got smacked down for it by a senior colleague who had study section experience. This is where your understanding that the reviewer has the summary statement right on her desk next to your revised application comes in handy. They can read the good bits and heck, they might have written those themselves. Cut to the chase.

I shouldn't have to mention this but also resist the urge to talk schmack about the prior review(ers). This doesn't go well.

The rest is, structurally speaking, quite simple. It should be a listing of the most-important and/or most-consistent criticisms, one by one, with your reply underneath. I like to set quoted material in italics and then answer in plain font. You can do this with a line in the margin (meh) or with font face (yuk) but I like italics better. I also edit this down to a few phrases that communicate the point and combine the same criticism from multiple reviewers if applicable- gotta save space. Remember, they have the summary statement.

Identifying which are the most critical comments is up to the Investigators and it is very hard to set general principles or advice here. Obviously you'd be best off if you can reply to anything that looks like a knock on your prior version but space is limited. Having more-experienced colleagues read your summary statement and draft Intro can be helpful here.

Likewise, the content of your response is going to be up to the criticism, your proposal and your situation in general. My generic advice is to give them something. Throw the reviewer a bone, even if you can't deliver the response they probably want to see. Never, ever totally stiff a comment by saying there is no way in hell you are going to do it. That is a surefire way to another crappy score.

Where possible it is nice to point the reviewer to where you made the discussed changes. A few parenthetical references to "see Innovation" or "Specific Aim 2" goes a long ways here.

Try as hard as you can not to blow off a criticism that seems important. If it shows up in the Resume of Discussion you'd damn well better have a response. Ditto if your conversation with your PO after the review revealed a major issue of discussion.

Then you end (or possibly end the first paragraph before you get into the point-by-point) with the comment that major changes in the proposal are indicated by a line in the margin (I find this the most readable) or italics or altered font or something. If there really is wholesale revision, you can say this and omit the indication of revised bits. But in most cases you are going to have a few key passages and design features, perhaps some new data, and you want to draw the reviewer's eye to what is new. Remember, that she does not have access to the prior version of the proposal...and may not have ever seen it before anyway.

These changed bits will hopefully correlate directly with the items you have listed in your point-by-point and indeed with other criticisms that have not made the cut for the one page Intro to the Revised Application.

The quality of your response to the prior criticism is a major factor in review. You do not want the reviewer in any doubt as to just what you have changed. Fortunately, the structural part is relatively easy.

It is only the content of your revision that should have you sweating bullets.

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