The Art and Science of Successful Scientific Grant Writing - Part 3

This post is a continuation of my earlier articles (The Art and Science of Successful Scientific Grant Writing - Part 1: https://steemit.com/steemstem/@davidrhodes124/the-art-and-science-of-successful-scientific-grant-writing-part-1) and (The Art and Science of Successful Scientific Grant Writing - Part 2: https://steemit.com/steemstem/@davidrhodes124/the-art-and-science-of-successful-scientific-grant-writing-part-2).

After you have successfully produced a solid first draft of your Project Summary and Project Description, complete with References/Literature Cited, it is time to devote attention to other items that will be needed for your proposal. These items include a Cover Page, a Curriculum Vitae, a Budget and Budget Justification, a Facilities and Equipment section, a list of Current and Pending Support, and various Certifications. It is a good practice to begin working on these items while your first drafts of your Project Summary, Project Description and References are under review by your mentor or major professor, a colleague or two, and a friend (see Part 2).

If you are at an academic institution, please seek out and contact the institution's Division of Sponsored Programs, or equivalent. This entity typically handles all proposals that are submitted by individuals within the institution. I give here the link to the Sponsored Program Services web site for Purdue University as an example:

Sponsored Program Services (SPS) - Purdue University (https://www.purdue.edu/business/sps/)

This service, or equivalent at your institution, may be able to assign to you a Pre-Award Specialist who can assist you in preparing these documents. At Purdue, SPS provides users with the ability to access saved proposal worksheets at any time:

Proposal Information Portal - Purdue University (https://www.purdue.edu/sps/proposalworksheet/)

In the USA the institution's Division of Sponsored Programs, or equivalent, will also help you register on GRANTS.GOV:

GRANTS.GOV - Get Started (https://www.grants.gov/help/html/help/GetStarted/Get_Started.htm)

GRANTS.GOV - Register (https://www.grants.gov/help/html/help/Register/Register.htm)

GRANTS.GOV - Apply for Grants (https://www.grants.gov/help/html/help/Applicants/Apply_for_Grants.htm)

GRANTS.GOV - Manage Workspace (https://www.grants.gov/help/html/help/ManageWorkspaces/Manage_Workspace.htm)

GRANTS.GOV - WORKSPACE PROCESS (https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/applicants/workspace-overview/workspace-process.html)

Cover Page

The minimum information that you need to give to your assigned Pre-Award Specialist would be the title of your proposal, your contact information (Department, e-mail address, etc), the names of your co-Principal Investigator(s) (co-PI(s)) and their contact information, the agency to which you plan to submit your proposal, the program area to which you will be submitting your proposal, and an estimate of the approximate time that your budget would be prepared and available for incorporation into your proposal. With this information, your assigned Pre-Award Specialist may already be able to prepare the Cover Page for you, using the appropriate forms available on GRANTS.GOV. Items required on the Cover Page include the name and address and contact information for the institution, the institution's tax identification number and DUNS number. Don't worry about these items as they will be completed by the Pre-Award Specialist. After your budget is prepared (see below), the total budget request, requested starting date for the proposal and the number of months that you anticipate the proposed research will take, can then be added to the Cover Page prior to submission.

Curriculum Vitae

Prepare a curriculum vitae following the agency guidelines. Typically this should be confined to two pages and include your name, education (including degrees received), current affiliation, previous employment, honors and awards, and a list of publications. At some agencies the latter may be restricted to selected publications from the last 5 years, and a list of publications most relevant to the current proposal. Some agencies will also require the name of your major professor. The agency will use your curriculum vitae to ensure that they don't send your proposal to your major professor and co-authors to avoid conflicts-of-interest. The reviewers of your proposal will consult your curriculum vitae to assess your publication history and your experience in the field.

Current and Pending Support

Granting agencies will require a list of your (and your co-PI(s)) current and pending proposals (i.e. proposals that are in review) to ensure that the proposal that you are submitting does not overlap substantially with other proposals that you have had funded or may soon be funded. The agency does not want to fund the same project twice. Usually the Cover Page will ask you to declare whether or not the proposal you are submitting has been submitted to another agency, and if so, to specify that agency. Typically, agencies will require a list of proposal titles, funding agency, start-date and end-date, budget total, PI's, and a list of objectives of each proposal that is current or pending. For a new investigator, this page may have very few or no entries.

Facilities and Equipment

Each agency typically requires you to provide a list of facilities and equipment available to you in your laboratory, in your Department, and at the institution that you are affiliated with. The NIH calls this section "Resources". The reviewers will use this section to assess whether you have the resources available to complete your proposed research. List only the most important items that you have access to in your laboratory, and shared-equipment and facilities in your Department. Some institutions will have facilities that are open to use by many faculty and students from numerous Departments and Schools (e.g. genomics facilities, mass spectrometry or NMR facilities, greenhouses, growth chambers, farms etc). List these too if you plan to utilize them in your proposed research. If the institution charges for use of these facilities, itemize these anticipated costs in the Budget.

Budget

Don't under-estimate the time it takes to have your budget prepared and approved. This is probably the most important item of your proposal as far as the academic institution (University) is concerned. It may require 3 levels of approval ... Departmental, School and University. Each Department would typically have a Business Office. You would need to contact your Business Officer to produce a preliminary draft of your Budget. Key items that the Business Officer would need from you would be the start- and end-date for your proposed research, the percentage of your time (and the time of your co-PI(s)) that you would devote to the project, how many graduate students, post-doctoral associates, or technicians that you plan to hire, an estimate of the cost of yearly supplies and expenses that you plan to request, the cost of any equipment that you plan to purchase, the amount of funds you are requesting for domestic and international travel, the amount of funds you are requesting for publication of results, and computer charges. The Business Office will then calculate salaries, fringe benefits, and total direct costs of the proposal and apply an indirect cost (overhead) to that total consistent with the institution's overhead rate [a rate that is negotiated between the institution/University and the granting agencies and which is beyond your control]. The Business Office would generate a budget page for each year of the project, as well as a page that summarizes the total budget request over the entire period of your proposed project.

Each of these items should be briefly explained/justified in a companion "Budget Justification" or "Budget Narrative" page.

It is a good idea to be as realistic as possible in preparing your Budget and accompanying Budget Justification. Don't pad the budget ... this padding will be recognized by experienced reviewers.

Once you have approved of the Budget prepared at the Departmental level, this would then be signed by the Department Head and forwarded to the School for approval and signature of the Dean. Only after these levels of approval can the Budget be forwarded to the institution's Division of Sponsored Programs, or equivalent, for final approval. At this stage the total budget request and start-date and end-date be added to the Cover Page.

Collaborators

If you plan to collaborate with an individual from a different institution who is willing to assist you in your research, and if this individual is not a co-PI, then seek a letter from that individual that you can append to your proposal. Collaborators do not need to submit a curriculum vitae (this is only required for the PI and co-PI(s)).

Certifications

Suppose that you plan to perform research involving human subjects or vertebrate animals, or will use radioactive substances in your research, you will need to submit a request to your institution for approval. Typically, these requests are evaluated by bio-safety committees, and these committees may require you to take certain safety courses before approval and certification. Once you have obtained certification, this should be sent to your Pre-Award Specialist who can then incorporate that information into the appropriate agency Certification Form on GRANTS.GOV.

Broader Impacts

For NSF proposals it is essential to include a brief Broader Impacts statement in your Project Summary, and an expanded version of that statement in your Project Description. I would encourage anyone who is submitting a proposal to NSF to take a look at this NSF Brochure - Perspectives on Broader Impacts (https://www.nsf.gov/od/oia/publications/Broader_Impacts.pdf) to identify what aspects of your proposal satisfy this requirement, and glean ideas that might be incorporated into your proposal.

Data Management Plan

At NSF it is now essential to include a supplementary document of no more than two pages labeled “Data Management Plan”.

"This supplement should describe how the proposal will conform to NSF policy on the dissemination and sharing of research results, and may include:

• the types of data, samples, physical collections, software, curriculum materials, and other materials to be produced in the course of the project;

• the standards to be used for data and metadata format and content (where existing standards are absent or deemed inadequate, this should be documented along with any proposed solutions or remedies);

• policies for access and sharing including provisions for appropriate protection of privacy, confidentiality, security, intellectual property, or other rights or requirements;

• policies and provisions for re-use, re-distribution, and the production of derivatives; and

• plans for archiving data, samples, and other research products, and for preservation of access to them.

Data management requirements and plans specific to the Directorate, Office, Division, Program, or other NSF unit, relevant to a proposal are available at: https://www.nsf.gov/bfa/dias/policy/dmp.jsp. If guidance specific to the program is not available, then the requirements established in this section apply." (from: https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/policydocs/pappguide/nsf11001/gpg_2.jsp#dmp).

Consult the agency to which you are applying (and the latest guidelines) to see if they also require a Data Management Plan.

Other Items That May Be Required

Some agencies will ask you to list all the individuals that you have collaborated with, or co-authored papers or proposals with, over the last 5 years. Certain agencies may also ask you to list potential reviewers (excluding those with whom you have conflicts-of-interest).

As before, please feel free to post comments or questions in the comments section below. I will attempt to answer them as soon as possible. My next installment in this series (Part 4) will be a list of references on "Grants and Grantsmanship".