Association for Academic Surgery (AAS)

by

Tips for a Successful Training Research Grant

Here is a list of tips for writing a training research grant applications, such as the post-doctoral F32 fellowship:

  1. Pick the right funding agency. Certain funding agencies have higher paylines, more money available for postdoctoral fellows (you are one of these because you have an MD), or simply appreciate your research more than others would. Once you have a specific aims page (see below), you can reach out to your program officer to schedule a phone call and ASK if your idea is potentially fundable.
  2. Grantwriting has a secret handshake. There is a literally a book for this. Or attend a course, such as the Annual AAS Grantwriting Workshop. One resource that I found particularly helpful “The Grant Application Writer’s Workbook – THE NIH VERSION” by Stephen Russell
  3. Write your specific aims first. This takes a long time to get done perfectly, but the rest of the scientific portion of the grant really writes itself.
  4. Make sure all of your documents are cohesive and tell the same story throughout. Strategically refer to supporting documents throughout. Make everything really pretty. The biggest differences between my first (rejected) application and my second (funded) application were cohesiveness of my storyline (including how each member of my team played into my plan), improved analysis plan, and PRETTY PICTURES. I used draw.io to create free diagrams within my research strategy and Powerpoint to create Gantt timelines.
  5. The scientific portion is only half of the grant. They want to know that you are a great applicant and that you have the support you need from ALL the right people at your institution. Don’t do yourself a disservice and only use boilerplate text. It’s all about storytelling. For instance, if there is a specific skill that your research needs, make sure you have an expert on your team to help you learn it and execute that skill throughout your research. Additionally, you need to make the case that you are the perfect candidate to do this research and that this opportunity will help you become X… For me, I hammered-home that I wanted to be an independent health-services researcher. In this type of grant, they want to hear something along the lines of, “I will use these preliminary findings to apply for an NIH-early career grant to become an expert in Y.
  6. Build your team. Your grant sponsor is critically important, but you will need a lot more people on your grant team. Everyone on your team needs to be big time (i.e. PhD, MD, Funded-Lab, etc) or at least established in some way to help you succeed. And you need a biostatistician (no one gets funded without one). You actually get to write letters of support (very template) to cross-reference how every person on your team will help you.
  7. Don’t trust anyone, except yourself, to make your grant perfect or to meet deadlines. You need to keep meticulous track of everything and be a perfectionist about the quality of work that you submit.
  8. There are several online checklists and sample timelines for submitting this type of grant. Your institutional internal deadline may be several days before the final deadline. A good grant is “finished” at least a month before that deadline to allow for revisions. Ideally you would have your specific aims and biosketch done at least four months before the funding agency’s deadline.
  9. If you get drafts done early enough, there are tons of grant writing resources to help proof your grant ahead of time. Your institution or professional societies may offer mock grant review sessions, which will give you the exact type of feedback that you need.
  10. The summary statement is the review that you get from the funding agency. You will get an impact score (lower is better) and your mentors can help you interpret this. Get ready to at minimum respond to the reviewers, but more often than not, people have to resubmit their first grant. You will need to start working on your resubmission before you actually get a funding decision to have a chance of being funded during your research time. Your good ole’ friendly Program Officer at your grant agency can help determine if a resubmission is likely.
Stephanie T Lumpkin MD MSCR

Stephanie T Lumpkin MD MSCR

Dr. Stephanie T Lumpkin is a fifth year general surgery resident at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is currently a postdoctoral research fellow. Her research is funded by both the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons General Surgery Resident Research Initiation Grant and the Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality F32 Postdoctoral Fellowship. Her primary research is a mixed methods study examining post discharge healthcare utilization after colorectal surgery. Additionally, Dr. Lumpkin enjoys hiking, healthy cooking, and traveling with her husband and two young children.
Stephanie T Lumpkin MD MSCR

Latest posts by Stephanie T Lumpkin MD MSCR (see all)