Grant Writing 101: Science is a team sport
I offer a glimpse into what it takes to pull together a grant application to fund scientific research.
Science is a team sport. The performance of science also offers an ongoing lesson in humility. One thing is guaranteed in the journey of a scientist: failure—and a lot of it. What is advertised on our resumes and social media posts, of course, reflects only the successes. But, believe me, behind every successful grant submission or publication lies a pile of failed applications, each one representing hundreds of hours of intense work, sweat, and tears.
How do scientists do it? How do they face failure time and again and still go on? Part of it is due to job pressure. Many academic scientists in professional schools—such as pharmacy and medical schools—are required to cover a large chunk (65-75%) of their own salaries with grant funding they secure. Another part is motivated by their passion for scientific discovery. To run experiments and test the models in their fields, scientists need external funds to pay for a research staff and purchase the supplies and equipment necessary to perform the work. And then there's the optimism of a gambler—the hope that with the next roll of the dice, success awaits.
What motivates me? A little bit of all of these things. Perhaps there are motivations that drive others, but these are the ones I'm most intimately acquainted with.
Lessons in Failure
My lessons in grant writing failure began early in my scientific career. I wrote my first National Institutes of Health F31 training grant while I was accepted to but had not yet started graduate school at a university in London. I needed the funds to cover my foreign tuition fees and living expenses.
I approached the process filled with naiveté and lacked mentorship or guidance from someone experienced in successfully writing such applications. As one might predict, the result was very low scores from the review committee and cutting remarks in the written feedback.
In total, it took me four attempts to eventually secure the grant award. With each resubmission, my only guide was learning from my own mistakes. The process spanned five years before I finally succeeded. By that time, I had enrolled in another program in the U.S. that provided some initial funding and offered me a $19,000 annual stipend to live on.
Grant Panel Summaries
Here is the verbatim feedback I got from the review of each application cycle. These are the panel summaries. The individual reviewers offered additional detailed point-by-point remarks in their critiques, not included here due to space and length of this piece.
April 2002 Submission
This is a new NRSA Predoctoral Fellowship Training application to obtain information that might lead to new therapeutic foods or medicines derived from the diet or the healing of individuals in an isolated community in Northern Italy. The Candidate has an average academic history in terms of grades, but she seems to have a flair for field work and has already published manuscripts in this area of research. She appears very skilled in writing and editing. She performed well in GRE and achieved an above average score in MCAT. She received local and national awards and fellowships in Anthropology during her undergraduate studies. The Candidate requests training in Europe, which seems reasonably well justified. The environments, facilities, sponsor and academic training plan are strong elements of the application. The proposal is, however, not well developed, for example there are no signs of hypothesis testing and the methodology is not described for recruiting human subjects or sample analysis. It was a major concern for the study section that human subject considerations were not properly addressed and that training in the ethical conduct of research was not presented. Overall, the study section considered this a less than average application in terms of scientific and training merit.
December 2002 Submission
In this revised application, Cassandra Quave is requesting 36 months of predoctoral fellowship support to continue her ethnopharmacological studies on the identification and pharmacological evaluation of traditional botanicals used in small Italian communities in the traditional treatment of skin diseases. The applicant had a difficult undergraduate career and her GRE and MCAT scores were just average. She has had an extensive range of prior teaching, writing, and research accomplishments, and the later have resulted in several publications. The letters of recommendation are very supportive of her research career potential. The institution’s training program is outstanding, although the candidate’s training plan does not appear to include coursework for credit or a convincing description of how she will take advantage of the facilities since there will not be the usual residency within the training environment. The proposed research is field-based and the revised application does a better job of providing details about the logistics of the mentoring plan. Parts of the proposed research are primarily the gathering of descriptive data, and there are still concerns that the experimental approach is not based on sufficient preliminary information to justify the study design or validate the methodologies being proposed. The thesis mentors is well funded, has an outstanding publication record, and has a track record in successfully mentoring. Overall, this is a good fellowship application from a solid candidate, and the review committee recommends it with a moderate level of enthusiasm.
November 2006 Submission
In this pre-doctoral fellowship application, a third year graduate student puts forward a plan to screen and identify antibiotic compounds from plant-derived natural products. The screening is to be conducted on multiple S. aureus strains by measuring the drug effects on bacterial growth as well as the Quorum-sensing pathway indicative of the accessory gene regulator (agr) system in S. aureus. The candidacy of Ms. Quave is considered excellent, representing a key strength of this application. The reviewers are all impressed with her commitment, intellectual capacity, and productivity as reflected in her effort in plant sample collection and the long list of publications. However, they divide in views on the research plan which, though well written and logically presented, appears to be weak in microbiology and the project feasibility (given the wide scope). A main reservation is about the experimental rationale to link Quorum sensing to biofilm formation without full appreciation of the complexity of the bacterial regulatory systems and differences among strains. There is also concern on whether the applicant can receive sufficient guidance from the thesis advisor, who is not a microbiologist, or from the co-sponsor, whose role in directing this project is not clearly described.
April 2007 Submission
In this amended predoctoral fellowship application, the applicant, Ms. Quave, proposes to examine the effect of plant extracts used in Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) on methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The identification of novel antibiotic compounds for drug-resistant bacteria is a highly significant goal. The applicant remains highly qualified for a F31 award as her academic performance and reference letters are deemed outstanding, and her publication record is excellent. Both the sponsor and the cosponsor are productive investigators, but have limited funding to support this training. They both have relatively modest mentoring experience. The training environment in microbiology is considered less-than adequate, but is not a major concern. Although the research plan is very good, it is unlikely to provide training in new approaches and techniques for the candidate. The research plan also appears to lack direction. The project is more technical, and less mechanistic. Overall, the Panel expressed modest enthusiasm for this application due to relative lack of training potential with the proposed research plan.
Years ago, I never would have shared the shame of these repeated failures. Some might look at this pattern and think, "Give up already! They don't like your ideas! They don't believe you have what it takes!" However, something deeper drove me: a steadfast conviction in my ideas, coupled with the very real financial necessity to fund both my research and my salary.
Finally, by 2007, I secured the F31 funding. The next grant I pursued—an NIH F32 post-doctoral training grant—was funded on the first try. You see, each time I failed, I absorbed the lessons from my previous mistakes, taking the reviewers' feedback seriously. In essence, I was mentored by a panel of faceless professors, who likely had no idea how profoundly their feedback shaped my scientific training.
Reflecting on the twenty-one years since I wrote my first major grant, it's astounding to see how much I've achieved through persistence and learning from my failures. Over this period, I've secured $12.5 million USD through grants, contracts, and philanthropic support for my research and educational activities. Moreover, the ideas that began to crystallize in my early proposals eventually led to research and discoveries, culminating in more than 125 scientific publications and seven issued U.S. patents—all of which have been licensed to companies for commercial development.
Why am I sharing these failures?
In a single word, my motivation is students. I am doing this for both my students and for those I may never meet in person. Over the years, I've mentored hundreds of students. While it's crucial to share my enthusiasm for science, it's equally important to reveal the reality behind the struggles they will undoubtedly face. They need both perspectives; otherwise, they may come to believe that their own failures are out of the ordinary.
My journey was rendered more challenging because I walked that path alone. Lacking courses in grant writing, mentors in grant writing for guidance, and experienced peers for feedback, I had to navigate the complexities of science by myself. In my experience, treating science as a solo endeavor is more likely to result in failure.
How do I lead scientific grant writing as a team sport today?
Last week, I convened my research group in a seminar room for two intensive days of brainstorming, writing, and division of labor, running from 9 AM to 5 PM. I provided food and drinks, and we created mind-maps on the whiteboards. We followed a strict itinerary that segmented the day into cycles of large group discussions, small group breakout sessions, stretch and food breaks, and individual work periods. My team wasn't limited to just my post-docs and graduate students; it also included my undergraduate mentees and rotating graduate students who are in the lab for only a few months as they explore different teams. Given the size of my lab team, we divided into two writing groups and focused on crafting two proposals. Each member was assigned a specific role, and tasks were distributed in such a way that no one person had to carry too heavy a load. By employing this strategy, we were able to accomplish in just a few days what would normally take an individual weeks to complete.
Team Member Roles
Project Manager: Often the lead proposal writer, this individual must possess strong organizational and project management skills, as well as a deep understanding of application requirements. Serving as the "brain center" of the project, they assign tasks and deadlines, keep the process moving, and collaborate with the Grant Assembly Manager to prepare the application for submission.
Program Expert: This person needs a thorough understanding of the grant funding program and the relevant field or discipline. Their role includes mapping out the program plan and contributing content to key sections, such as problem/need, methods, and evaluation. They provide the group with a proposal outline, complete with length recommendations for each section based on program rules, and also participate in content creation, editing, and revising.
Content Creator(s): Working closely with the Project Manager and Program Expert, these individuals contribute to content creation and revision for the proposal. Tasks may include performing literature searches, curating an Endnote library, creating graphs/figures/tables, and writing and editing the proposal.
Administrative Leader: This individual supplies details about program oversight and compliance, offers expertise on staffing and equipment needs for the project, gives input on management and facility capacity, and liaises with research administrative services for budget preparation and personnel justification. They will rotate between groups throughout the retreat and maintain the schedule.
Grant Assembly Manager: Responsible for assembling grant components, this person manages the checklist of required submission items and collaborates closely with the Project Manager to identify tasks and establish internal deadlines. They also coordinate requests for any external letters needed for the proposal and will rotate between groups throughout the retreat.
In the end, as the Principal Investigator (PI) and 'head coach,' I am responsible for the final refinement, overseeing the direction and vision, and submitting the final grant packet. However, everyone learns key lessons from the writing process and gains insight into what crafting and submitting a grant entails. This experience also trains post-docs and graduate students in team-building and leadership within a group—lessons that will benefit them in any work sector they pursue after completing their degree and training period.
How do I measure success?
It's not just about the sheer volume of work we accomplished during this writing retreat, impressive as that was! Success also lies in the leadership skills each team member brings and the contributions they make toward their team's achievements. It's reflected in the way they listen attentively to each other's ideas and offer constructive feedback. It's visible in the smiles I saw on their faces after two intense days of work, and in the plans they collaboratively made for completing the final product in the coming weeks. Whether or not these two grants receive funding, I know we've already succeeded. The skills honed during this process will continue to benefit them in their future careers and as mentors to their future trainees.
When a new student inquired of a more senior trainee, "Is this a normal part of a lab rotation?" the reply came: "Nothing in the Quave lab is normal." And that's exactly how I like it.
Yours in health, Dr. Quave
Cassandra L. Quave, Ph.D. is a scientist, author, speaker, podcast host, wife, mother, explorer, and professor at Emory University School of Medicine. She teaches college courses and leads a group of research scientists studying medicinal plants to find new life-saving drugs from nature. She hosts the Foodie Pharmacology podcast and writes the Nature’s Pharmacy newsletter to share the science behind natural medicines. To support her effort, consider a paid or founding subscription, with founding members receiving an autographed 1st edition hardcover copy of her book, The Plant Hunter.
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