Crafting Your Research Proposal

Step 1: The Idea

• Identify a need and your idea for a solution
• What are others doing in this area?
  • https://reporter.nih.gov/ (default is to search active awards)
  • https://clinicaltrials.gov/

Step 2: Choosing an Institute and Center (IC) and Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA)

• Does your idea fit with IC-specific priorities?
  • Strategic plan
• What’s the best FOA for you?
  • Scientific focus and scope of FOA
  • Career stage
  • What ICs are signed on?

Step 3: Developing Specific Aims

• Must contain everything important and exciting about your project and be clear and concise
  • Set up the problem and/or need and/or gap
  • Describe a possible solution—may include “long-term goal” and “immediate objective”
  • Provide a snapshot of your research strategy
  • Develop theory and/or hypothesis-driven specific aims (approximately 2 to 3)
  • Connect the potential impact of your research to IC-specific priorities
• For Career Development Awards: briefly describe training and your long-term potential to impact the field;  
  where does this project lead?

Step 4: Developing the Research Proposal

• Read the FOA carefully to ensure a complete application that addresses all review criteria!!
• Significance = Set up the problem and/or need and/or gap and the potential of your study to be impactful (but be fair with previous literature—no cherry-picking); set up the theoretical perspective of the application
• Innovation = How your proposed approach is novel
• Approach = What you plan to do in as much detail as possible
  • Preliminary data and/or experience
  • Describe participants, study design, measures
  • Statistical analyses (connect to aims) 
  • Study timeline
  • Potential problems and alternative strategies (justify choices)
  • Potential impact (end on a high note)

Step 5: Develop Candidate Section (for Career Development [K] Awards)

• Candidate background = Your background and commitment to a research career
• Career goals = Logical progression to independence, but highlight need for additional training
• Career development plan = Specific training plan with timeline, courses and/or workshops, mentor meetings, etc.

Step 5: Refine Aims and Proposal!

• Review and get advice from mentors, colleagues, external reviewers, friends, family, etc.
• Plan time for many revisions

Step 6: Dealing With Revisions If Not Funded

• Talk over the summary statement with a program officer, mentors, and colleagues to identify major vs. minor critiques
• Identify major themes of critiques to address in one-page response
• Restart the proposal development process with critiques in mind!

Talking With Program Officers

• Contact us early! 
  • Provide the FOA you are considering
  • Send the draft concept or draft aims
  • Provide several times you are available for a call over the next 2 weeks
• Contact us more than once!
  • You may want brief discussion on the overall fit of your topic with IC priorities, then a more in-depth discussion of developed aims later
  • You may want to contact more than one IC to 
    • Gauge enthusiasm
    • Ask for other potential program officers to contact if you get a “not interested”
• Topics to discuss pre-application
  • Advice on which FOA to use—needed qualifications, fit with research focus
  • Advice on specific aims—align with purpose and/or scope of the FOA and programmatic priorities
  • Advice on the study section (if going to the Center for Scientific Review)
  • Characteristics of applications that score well for that FOA
• Topics to discuss post-review (wait until the summary statement is released)
  • Feedback on summary statement
  • Score (in fundable range? Is resubmission appropriate?)
  • Response to the summary statement (is there an opportunity to submit a response to the summary statement to the program officer?)
  • Preparation for resubmission