Catherinse Sarkisian speaks on the topic of A Tactical Approach to Writing Your Grant Application at the R Award Workshop on November 09, 2017 at UCLA.

1. A tactical approach to writing
your grant proposal
Catherine A. Sarkisian, MD, MSHS
UCLA CTSI R Workshop
November 9, 2017

2. 4-6 month time-line: 1st month
• Pick a high-impact topic you love and
get excited to be creative
– should be natural extension of your K work
• Draft specific aims
• Start to put together scientific team
• Map out calendar
– meet with your admin team to determine
key dates
– vacations, ward attending?
– set target dates to get drafts to Co-Is

3. 3-4 months out:
Meet with your Program Official
• Remember that most PO’s love seeing K
awardees get R01s
– relationship evolves during your K
• Phone vs. email?
• Will he/she will read your specific aims?
• Suggestions re study section?
• Cover letter can mention your PO
• Send thank you email and copy of grant

4. Putting Together your Team: think
both as a reviewer and as PI
• Interdisciplinary teams increasingly
attractive
• Each team member needs to be making
unique/complimentary contribution
• Consider linking with strengths of your
institution
– Will be attractive to reviewers
– Good opportunity to expand your network

5. Putting Your Team Together
(Continued)
• Think carefully about subcontracts
(allow extra time)
• Balance of seniority levels
• Think about division needs
• Choose people you want to work with

6. Developing your Team
Leadership Style
• Embrace the role of PI (gradual process
evolving over K period)
• Be very clear to Co-I’s what is expected
– What is exact role?
– How many meetings? Format? Travel?
– What % time covered?
– Authorship?

7. Start Budget Early
• Tension between being economical and
practical (talk to your PO)
– Agencies like low-budget projects BUT
– Make sure you can do the work!
• (also likely to get across the board cut)
– Budget justification is CRITICAL
• Investigator time:
– As new investigator consider 35% time
– 5% time for Co-Is can be red flag to reviewers

8. Don’t under-budget:
• Project Director salary
• Ground transportation for staff
• Cell phones and service
• Translations
• Data storage (consider scanning)

9. Writing the Grant
• Approach (Methods) is MOST important
– Write first. Do not wait.
• Remember your audience
– Few MDs
– May know nothing about your area of research
– Make it easy on the reviewer
• White space, figures, tables, colors
– Always discuss trade-offs

10. Telling your Story:
Preliminary Studies
• Purpose:
– (Findings that support your hypotheses)
– Most important: to show the reviewer your
team has experience to do the project

11. Show that you have considered
potential obstacles/tradeoffs
and how you will address them
• Discuss trade-offs of design decisions
– Example: randomizing at individual vs.
cluster
– Can do throughout or in summary section
towards end of approach section
– How will you deal with potential problems?
• Refer to budget throughout

12. Make it Easy for the Reviewer
• Use exact language from program
announcement
– “the stated aim of this program
announcement is XXX and our project
addresses this by . . . . “
• Remind reviewer of specific review
criteria and state specifically how your
project addresses.
– Consider bulletted section at the end
– 1 bullet for each criteria

13. Avoid Grant Pitfalls
• Write face page (abstract) early and
circulate
• Don’t be unjustifiably overambitious
• Do not put essential elements in the
appendices
• Convince reviewer of feasibility
– Preliminary studies
– Benchmarks
– Alternative plans
– Institutional support