Imagination, Creativity, and Grantsmanship
March 26, 2011
Whenever I get the NIH Guide, I swear half the fucken FOAs my first reaction is all like, “Shitte. I could apply for that motherfucker.” I think this is the mindset that the people lack who are all like “If this one R01 application I submitted doesn’t get funded by the first resubmission, my career is over and I will never be able to submit another one again, because the science is so special and unique and different, and all my hypotheses and approaches are DEAD, KILLED BY FACTUAL ERRORS OF INCOMPETENT REVIEWERS.”
March 26, 2011 at 8:32 am
Hey CPP,
I totally agree with you that most, if not all, applicants should say: “Shitte, I can apply for that motherfucker”. Except that saying: “Yes, I can” does not necessarily result in: “Wow, I got the motherfucker”. Other than creativity, imagination and grantsmanship, there should also be creative and almost continuous release of RFAs in biomedical areas of national interest. That will give continuous opportunities to investigators with a specific expertise to inventively apply their knowledge to unexplored questions. It will also compensate for the now missing A2s. And it should energize and synergize efforts to tackle unresolved questions.
Good luck motherfucker CPP !
March 26, 2011 at 9:43 am
One of the reasons I advise trainees to subscribe to the weekly email of the NIH FOA and Notices. It always helps to jog your creative juices to think about what your take would be on a defined research area that you don’t normally think of as your own.
March 26, 2011 at 12:22 pm
Why should we waste our time on “creativity” with word-playing to “cheat” NIH?
March 26, 2011 at 5:19 pm
I don’t think “creativity” here means “trickery,” anon. Like DrugMonkey says, I interpret it to mean that you need find ways to stretch your general ideas into new realms of research. If there’s one thing that can kill a career, it’s tunnel vision.
March 27, 2011 at 7:15 pm
In theory, this is good advice. But hipster reviewers on the study section would likely look at the applicant and say “this PI does not have a background in disease/model X” and would probably score the app in kind.
March 28, 2011 at 3:41 am
Yes Fred, that’s a real difficulty which could be circumvented by:
a) an explicit policy/commitment by NIH to stimulate application of knowledge/expertise to unexplored areas, including “not having specific background on a disease/model X”(For example, for R21s the policy was/is not to require preliminary data for high scoring)
b) the applicant should justify, in rationale section or a section designed for that purpose, why s/he feels qualified to tackle the question in the absence of “background in disease/model X”.
March 28, 2011 at 6:05 am
NIGMS has done this kind of thing, such as in this FOA:
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-10-125.html
Here’s are relevant snippets:
March 28, 2011 at 11:58 am
Re Fred:
although it is possible that this sort of criticism will be leveled, it is not inevitable. If you let this fear paralyze you, not good.
My thought is that you should strive for a mixture of applications. Some in your wheelhouse, some that are a stretch. Let the reviewers tell you that it is too much of a stretch…
March 28, 2011 at 4:54 pm
Really want to thank you for sharing your hard earned NIH funding wisdom!
March 28, 2011 at 6:49 pm
Indeed, thanks for reminding me of good things that I should keep in mind.
March 29, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Totes PP. Totes.
I’ve been liberally splashing around your advice to PIs to have several R01s going out the door each year. A friend of mine got a twentysomething on his last R01 sub and is all despondent. “I’m re-writing it to send it to a foundation.”
I was like, “dude, yeah, whatever, but where’s the next R01?” etc.
He was pissed but couldn’t fault the logic.