My recent experience in writing an interdisciplinary collaborative research grant differed from my previous ones in that there were three rather than two of us involved in the process. In addition, my two collaborators were from a discipline far from my health science expertise: electrical and computer engineering. There were parts of the methods that I just couldn’t write because they were beyond my expertise. I had mixed feelings about this inability to write. While I had confidence in my collaborators, I felt totally dependent upon them. On the other hand, this feeling of dependence meant to me that we had formed a true interdisciplinary collaboration.

Through this experience, I have identified four key strategies that worked for us to complete and submit the grant application and feel a sense of accomplishment during the process.

1. Be clear about collaborators’ expertise and contributions.

Successful grant writing requires that collaborators are clear on what everyone’s expertise is and how this expertise fits with the project’s specific aims. Prior to this grant submission, we were asked to write a white paper. (For information about a white paper, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_paper). It wasn’t long into the writing process that I realized our good fortune of having written this paper: our research question and approach were solidified, our contributions and expertise were transparent, and our current effort was pure writing instead of conceptualizing as we were writing. But you and your collaborators don’t need to wait for an opportunity to write a white paper. Consider writing one as the collaboration is forming.

2. Communicate frequently with your collaborators.

During a four-week period, we were in constant communication about the grant. Initially, the three of us had one in-person meeting to review our scientific approach. Then we communicated almost on a daily basis via email. One week before the application, I had another in-person meeting with one collaborator. This meeting was helpful as the collaborator had specific questions about the context of this proposed work within the state of the science. Not only did these questions enhance the collaborator’s understanding of the scientific field, but these questions also helped me to identify areas that I needed to strengthen or clarify within the proposal.

It’s common sense that constant communication is critical to the success of writing a collaborative grant application; however, we are not always intentional about our communication plan, and we all have different approaches to checking and responding to email. So it doesn’t hurt to discuss communication approaches at the start of writing the grant. For example, try to schedule at least two in-person meetings in advance—one at the start and one near the deadline. If you don’t need the second or subsequent meetings, then you can always cancel. It’s easier to schedule in advance than later. Also, to prevent any communication breakdowns, ensure all collaborators are included in email traffic. It’s a simple way to keep everyone in the loop and to create a record of reference for you and your collaborators.

3. Outsource tasks when possible.

Because we only had four weeks to draft the grant, as the lead co-principal investigator (co-PI), I decided to seek assistance from others so I could focus on the science for the proposal. For example, in my department, we have one staff person who can create a budget table and prepare a budget justification and another staff person who provides guidance in creating National Institutes of Health (NIH) biographical sketches. In addition, I enlisted the assistance of an outside editor to do editing/proofing. This editor helped with ascertaining the strengths of our case, ensuring the grant application read as one voice and met the formatting and content guidelines, and writing mechanics were correct.

These support individuals made a huge difference in completing and submitting a polished grant application, so I highly recommend outsourcing these tasks to these experts. At a research university, staff who can advise about grant budgets are usually available. Also, for specific grant requirements (e.g., the NIH biographical sketch), reach out to colleagues who have completed a similar grant proposal or visit the institution’s website for guidance and/or samples. In terms of editing support, check with your institution’s research or sponsored programs office to learn if editorial assistance is available. Another viable—and valuable—option is to hire a graduate student as an hourly worker to help with these tasks. A graduate student with a particular expertise can be just as effective at creating budgets, drafting biosketches, and editing your proposal as a full-time employee.

4. Develop a strategic plan for writing the grant.

Finally, as the lead co-PI, I was strategic about the order in which the different application sections were completed. For our specific project, there were five required sections: the project narrative, the one-page summary for the future external grant application, the budget, the curriculum vitae (the NIH biographical sketch), and the description of current and pending support. I chose to complete the project narrative first because I wanted to ensure that I had the creative energy and time for multiple revisions, especially since this application involved three writers. Plus, I needed to complete the project narrative before starting the one-page summary since this would describe the subsequent project to be submitted to an external funding agency. The budget table and justification were also completed early because the budget affected the project timeline, which was part of the project narrative. I was intentional in waiting until the project narrative was almost done to complete the curriculum vitae and support sections because I knew I would be outsourcing this task and could complete these even after much of my creative energy had been used up.

So when writing this type of grant, develop a strategic plan. This plan needs to account for the high and low points of your creative energy, the order in which multiple writers will need to contribute, the order in which sections need to be written, and the availability of support individuals. Even as a collaborator who is not the lead co-PI, you can develop a strategic plan so that your creative energy is highest when you need to contribute to sections, such as the project narrative. Finally, don’t forget to set deadlines as part of this plan. If you are the lead co-PI, you may propose these. If you are a collaborator, you may offer counter deadlines. When you can’t meet these, give new ones to ensure that the work will get done in a timely manner.

Although writing an interdisciplinary research collaborative grant application can be intimidating, implementing these four strategies will likely reduce this feeling, allowing you to be more confident and composed throughout the entire writing process. Have you been a lead co-PI or collaborator in a similar situation? I’d love to hear what you think of our strategies and other strategies that worked for you!

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Overview

The overview will contain the long-term objectives, followed by the aims that support those objectives. It is the introduction that will illustrate the importance of the project in terms of its effect and impact. As seen in the following example provided by the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater, the author begins with the objectives, followed by the aims and the methodology.

Example

One long-term objective of this project is to understand the development of the ability of organs peripheral to the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) to synchronize with the external environment. The first aim supports this objective with a systematic analysis of when during development an entrainable circadian rhythm is present in the developing eye, ear, nose, heart, and pronephros of the model organism, Xenopus laevis. We first test for the onset of circadian rhythm in each organ within the context of the embryo by assaying for rhythmic expression of circadian genes in a light/dark (LD) cycle. Next, the ability of each organ to intrinsically generate circadian rhythms is tested by assaying for rhythmic circadian gene expression in organs cultured in vitro in constant darkness (DD). Lastly, the ability of each organ to directly entrain to light is tested by culturing organs in vitro for two days in LD followed by three days in a DL cycle and assaying for rhythmic gene expression that correlates with the anti-phase light regime. Quantitative Real Time PCR will be used to measure gene expression in all these experiments.

Intellectual Merit

This section will address what is currently known and, more importantly, what is not known in the field. This shows how the proposal will fill an important gap in existing knowledge. Specifically, the NSF requires that you address how the proposed activities will advance knowledge in your own scientific field and across other fields in creative and transformative ways. The qualifications of the Principal Investigator (PI) and the institutional resources are also key elements in this section. As noted in the example below, authored by PI Katja Michael of the University of Texas at El Paso, the PI begins this section with the importance of the study, speaks about innovation and the rationale on why the study should take place. This is followed by the qualifications of the PI to undertake the study.

Example

Since glycoproteins of moderate size can now be synthesized in homogeneous form by native chemical ligation techniques, there is a great demand for their synthetic building blocks, i.e. thioester (glyco) peptides and glycopeptides with an N-terminal cysteine. An original concept based on the photochemical acylation of thiols and glycosylamines under mild reaction conditions will be established in order to afford thioester peptides and glycopeptides. Thioester peptides are prone to C-terminal epimerization during standard acylation conditions. In contrast, their photochemical generation under neutral or weakly basic conditions is expected to produce minimal amounts of epimerized byproduct, which will contribute to improved reaction yields, and thus to the overall reaction yield of glycoproteins synthesized by native chemical ligation. The P.I.’s recent research results demonstrate that photochemical acylation condition minimizes aspartimide formation and thus increases the product yield. The P.I. endeavors a novel and broadly applicable, photochemical approach to make these important peptide derivatives better accessible to the scientific community. Developing novel methods for the efficient synthesis of thioester peptides and glycopeptides hascross-disciplinary implications. Not only does it expand the synthetic methodologies available to organic chemists, but biophysicists, glycobiologists, spectrosc opists, and pharmacologists will also benefit from the improved accessibility of pure, homogeneous glycoproteins in large quantities.

Broader Impacts

The Broader Impacts statement is an important part of the Summary Page and will heavily affect your chances of being funded. According to the NSF criteria, this section is about understanding and promoting teaching, training, research and learning. A description of how science and technology will be enhanced, as well as the broad societal impacts should be included in this section. The following example, which was posted on the website of the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater, effectively states the impact that will be had on undergraduate education and research and how the university will support lab experiences for students.

Example

This proposal is a vehicle for providing an opportunity for undergraduates to become immersed in basic research full time for ten weeks during the summer (impact on 8-12 undergraduate students over three years). The University of Wisconsin at Whitewater has a strong commitment to undergraduate research. Also, programs are in place to support undergraduate research through small intramural grants awarded to students as well as programs that support hands on lab research experience students. This proposal builds on these programs and provides support for students that have been trained in the laboratory in the fall and spring semesters to continue their research full time for 10 weeks of the summer and become immersed in their project.

Conclusion

An excellent Summary Page is critical for leaving reviewers with a good first impression. You want reviewers to see you in the very best light, so that they can champion your proposal. It will also be the page that can lead to immediate rejection, if it is not written according to the NSF directions. Since it is the most important part of your proposal, it will take time, but if done correctly, it will ensure your proposal gets noticed and potentially reaches the top of the competition.

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Institutional Compliance

My institution at the time was a large 501c3 research organization with over $100 million in grant revenue per year, and an award portfolio of almost $1 billion. Like most nonprofits and research institutions, we lived and died by our ability to procure grants and maintain a healthy sponsored projects portfolio. Participation in proposal development was mandatory for researchers, and the institution was constantly forecasting workload needs based on submitted, pending, awarded, and closing grants. The culture at my institution encouraged PIs to aim for large, multi-year grants with padded budgets, since these were the most likely to yield an automatic no-cost extension or two. Furthermore, most researchers could only maintain employment through their grant portfolios. Given this environment, it is easy to understand how this PI believed that the grants being awarded to him were his personally.

Accountability to the Donor

Unveiling the truth about grant awards is rather anti-climactic. In the simplest language, grants are non-repayable funds or products, disbursed by a sponsor to a recipient. Most awards support a specific project and require some level of compliance, evaluation, and reporting. Sponsors of all kinds have the money and desire to advance certain agendas, activities, or research areas, but do not have the internal resources to do so. Specifically, foundations and not-for-profit organizations award funds based on a recipient’s ability to further a mission or goal, as well as fulfilling the work outlined in a proposal submission. Although a PI or team submits the proposal, sponsoring organizations do not recognize individuals as entities that can or will share responsibility on the same level. Instead, that burden falls to the organization or institution to which those PIs and teams belong. Moreover, a single person cannot carry out the proposed work or research to the degree that an organization can.

Tax Liability

The additional issue of tax liability is enough to dispel the erroneous notions of possession from most researchers. Institutions with the capacity to receive grants are either exempt from IRS tax liability, or they are large enough to absorb said tax liability. Excepting most scholarships, fellowships, and some disaster relief aid, if a grant is awarded and accepted by an individual, that person will be responsible for paying all the tax liabilities associated with it. I will never forget a meeting where I met a handful of faculty members who had been accepting grants awarded to them personally. The IRS had finally caught up with them and was demanding over $50,000 in back taxes, with the penalty for non-payment being time in prison. Had the institution accepted these awards, there would have been no tax liability at all.

Remember, grants are made to institutions, not individuals. Understanding why grants are awarded, and what the researcher’s role is in administering the award is vital for an organization’s ability to survive an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) audit. As Project Directors or PIs, you have been selected by your institution to act as the representative for the award. You have been made accountable for managing the programmatic requirements supplied by the sponsoring organization. While this is an awesome responsibility, it does not make the grant funding yours. Should there be an audit issue down the road, you may end up quite grateful for this fact.

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Ingredients

1. Understanding the Request for Proposal (RFP)
2. Excellent match between the request and the donor’s priorities
3. Answering the “so what” question
4. Simple prose and white space on the paper
5. Examples of the approach
6. Clearly written abstract
7. Explanation on what is needed to fill the gap
8. Methods to ensure the strategy works
9. The grand finale: the significance of the results

Preparation

Read the entire RFP, from top to bottom. Once you clearly understand the directions that the donor provides in the RFP, you can begin to put the pieces of the proposal together. You will use the same type of language given in the application; doing so makes your proposal more desirable to the donor. Double check that you and your organization are eligible for the grant you are seeking, and that your project or research aligns with the donor’s mission. This makes certain that the match is made between yourself and the donor, and preparation of the pieces can begin. These segments will be the product of extensive research on your part to move in the right direction. The pieces are:

1. Abstract – This will take careful preparation, since it is the most important part of the application. It is the first impression, the precise summary of the entire proposal, and the evidence that success is possible.
2. Introduction – Present the problem or question to be addressed. The “so what” question for your project or research must be apparent, and should begin or lead into the narrative.
3. Need Statement/Statement of Significance – This is where the convincing argument for the project takes place. You will tell your impressive story, citing research and examples with enthusiasm and clarity. Demonstrate that you have done your homework, defined your terms, developed your reasoning, and backed it up with examples.
4. Plan of Operation/Methodology – Logic and a tightly structured plan prevail here. This is the heart of the proposal, and it consists of the goal or hypothesis, objectives or specific aims, and activities. Each segment will clearly illustrate the way your proposal will unfold. The evaluation follows, which should be clearly outlined in the incremental measurements of each activity – and these will be used to ensure your success in meting your goal.
5. Significance of Results – In research proposals, this will be the way in which your hypothesis has been proven – or in the case of project grants – how your outcomes unfolded. This will be the section that shows the ultimate success of your proposal.

Presentation

Your presentation should be memorable. Don’t assume that the reviewers will overlook sloppiness because your idea is phenomenal. You can achieve a superior presentation with images, graphs, and Gantt charts, which are easy to understand and remember. Most importantly, if your proposal will have a significant impact, it should be stated as such. For instance, provide examples of how your work will make a difference, change the field, save lives, or set the stage for what will change. Whether the presentation necessitates the elegance of a fine dining restaurant or the simplicity of a well-prepared meal at home, the true mark of success lies in what was expected and what has been delivered in an impressive manner.

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