Likewise, an underlying message that reads like a patchwork quilt of multiple investigators’ expertise rather than a cohesive story will be difficult to follow and support. Other pitfalls to avoid include submitting proposals with typos, grammatical errors, and inconsistencies from one section of the grant to the next, as well as not following the grant’s instructions. “Each grant you apply for has explicit instructions about the priorities of funding in this particular grant mechanism,” Dr. Bush said. “If you don’t follow instructions on how the grant is assembled, that will be a fatal mistake.”
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September 2024And don’t wait too late after getting a K grant to apply for an R01. Dr. Nelson said that when he was applying, the people who were successful tended to apply at the end of the third year of their K grant. “It could take almost two years to progress through grant reviews and resubmissions after revisions,” he said. “If you wait until the fifth year, then you will run out of funding. In my experience, the best predictor of success in securing an R01 is early application.”
Resilience and Perseverance
Rejection is a common experience in the world of grant funding, but it need not define your success. “Don’t give up or let rejection define you or your happiness. Take rejection as an opportunity for improvement and to expand your study team or your scientific approach,” Dr. Bush said. “Each time you write a grant, consider that as a success. It’s a labor of love. We may not have academic or funding success every time, but it’s a lot of work and an accomplishment just to finish and submit it.”
Additionally, it is critical to understand that no researcher is 100% successful with each grant they submit. “A lot of the overachievers and academicians submitting these grants are not used to rejection,” Dr. Nelson said. “They are top-of-their-class types of people, and to get a rejection is hard to swallow. But you have to learn to accept it, persevere, and reapply.” Dr. Nelson recalled his mentor telling him that grant applications are all about shots on goal; the more you shoot, the more likely it is that one will go in. And while it may be difficult to think about that in the aftermath of a rejection, it’s part of the process. Addressing reviewers’ critiques and potentially recrafting your proposal with additional data will improve your odds of success.
While reapplying for R01 funding, researchers need additional funding to generate preliminary data and should explore alternative funding sources to keep their work moving forward. The Triological Society offers several grant opportunities tailored to junior faculty (see sidebar). Dr. Nelson also suggested looking into smaller NIH grants like R03 or R21 or funding from other agencies and foundations. These could include the Department of Defense, tumor foundations, or professional societies, as long as your research fits what they want to fund. Many academic centers have bridge funding to help sustain research between grants.
Landing that first R01 grant is certainly cause for celebration, but it also marks the beginning of a new chapter that requires careful planning and management. Dr. Bush highly recommends beginning the celebration by giving thanks to family and friends who have not seen you because you’ve been sequestered in your office or lab as well as thanking collaborators and administrators who helped to assemble the many pieces. “This is not the success of one individual, even though one individual is listed as the PI,” Dr. Bush said. “It takes a village to raise a grant.”
The next steps are to set up an infrastructure for accountability so that the work is done right and you’re responsible about how you spend the funds. “Make sure you have the administrative support and financial oversight in place to carefully follow that budget and move through the next five years,” Dr. Bush said.
Keep in mind that although you are a team leader as a physician, running a randomized controlled trial is very different from being a clinician. “As a physician, the team has obvious roles. Everyone knows what the medical assistant, practice assistant, scrub tech, and operating room nurse is supposed to do,” said Dr. Golub. “When you build a research team, you have to hire people and assign their roles, and then make sure they do their roles, but you