Posted May 3, 2024 by Dan Moser
Most faculty proposals for external funding start out ambitious and would benefit from some tough love from colleagues to pare them down, a national grant-writing expert said.
M.S. “Peg” AtKisson, president of the AtKisson Training Group, gave a presentation to the first cohort of InterFACE, a new multi-institutional initiative to support faculty developing competitive proposals for external funding. The cohort met at a workshop April 8-9 at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to focus on the strategic development of R01 applications to the National Institutes of Health.
InterFACE – Faculty Academy for Competitive Excellence – was developed by research development professionals at Nebraska, Montana State University, the University of Idaho, the University of Nevada, Reno, and Utah State University.
“InterFACE’s multi-institutional cohort model provides a great space to network, collaborate and build a community of supportive peers with whom you may not otherwise engage,” Rick Bevins, associate vice chancellor for research, told participants.
“At Nebraska, our experience with cohort programs is that those who invest the time and effort in learning and personal growth have the most significant outcomes.”
Almost every grant proposal starts out overly ambitious, AtKisson said, and the researcher’s first task is to boil it down to what is truly achievable within a “box” limited by time and funding constraints.
One key to getting to that point is seeking feedback from “people who will tell you the truth.
“We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged. Those that love us – those that are willing to invest in our success – are willing to risk our ire,” AtKisson said.
It’s critical to grab reviewers’ attention from the start. “If they don’t care about page 1, you’re doomed.”
Faculty need to keep in mind their roles in research grants. “The role you’re most comfortable in is expert because that’s what you’ve been trained to do,” she said.
But faculty also must take on roles that might not come naturally to them, such as managers – “of yourself, your money, your people, your time.” Also, they must be entrepreneurs, mentors, coaches and leaders.
A grant proposal should begin with a “who cares” analysis. “What is the problem? Whose problem is it? Who cares about the problem?”
That analysis also should include consideration of who doesn’t care about the problem, including those who might actually be actively against solving it.
NIH grant proposals go through four levels of review – administrative, peer, program and council.
AtKisson encouraged faculty to become familiar with NIH’s Center for Scientific Review, which works to ensure that grant applications receive fair, independent, expert and timely scientific reviews. It organizes the peer review groups or study sections that evaluate 75% of NIH grant applications.
The InterFACE cohort will meet at UNL again May 16-17, with further programming planned throughout the year and a deadline of February 2025 for participating faculty to submit their R01 proposals to the NIH.
