The NIH is made up of 27 institutes… there are multiple F-awards and K-awards. Choose wisely.
My sad, but not really that sad, story
Three years ago I attended Stanford University’s Grant Writing Academy Boot Camp. Over the period of a few weeks, I developed an interesting research project, wrote up my specific aims for an F32 Postdoctoral Fellowship, received critical feedback from my peers, made thoughtful corrections, and then (with my specific aims in hand) prepared to contact my program officer.
Pop quiz, what did I do wrong? Think… What was the one critical step I failed to do before I started writing???
Answer…
I forgot to carefully read the guidelines of the fellowship!!! Each institute sets their own guidelines and, while there are many similarities, there are also a few critical differences. For example, for some institutes a postdoc must apply for an F32 within the first year of joining the lab. Thus, at the ripe postdoctoral age of 1 year+2 months, I was academically too old to apply. After contacting a few other program officers, from institutes where I was still eligible to apply, I discovered that the project I had proposed was beyond the scope/mission of those institutes. After initially trying to fight it, in the end I reassessed my project and started over… annoying, but not the end of the world. Moral of the story — read very carefully, do your research first, and find NIH grants that you are eligible for before you start writing.
Resources to help you get started
Task #1: Pick an institute.
Here is a link to a list and description of the many NIH institutes. After looking through the list you may have one of two thoughts…
(i) “Wow, my proposal could go to multiple institutes.” Congratulations! Some institutes, like NCI (National Cancer Institute), give funding preference to applicants with primary sponsors that have a cancer related R01… so look into these preferences and see if you can take advantage of any of them. In addition, do a little research and look at the different funding rates of the different institutes. The success rate of one institute may be higher than the other… in which case (obviously) apply to the one that has the higher success rate (duh). Any little bit helps.
(ii) “Uh oh, my proposal doesn’t really address the mission of any institute.” No worries. In this case check out this handy website, NIH RePORTER (NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools). Under the query tab, type in a few key words that pertain to your research and it will present you with all the NIH funded grants that also share these key words, provide you with an abstract of the research, and most importantly reveal that institute that funded this research. An alternative resource is the NIH RePORTER mathchmaker tab. Using this function, you can copy and paste in a significant portion of your specific aims and it will provide you with either a list of similar NIH funded projects or a list of program officers that oversee this research. Yes, you may need to rethink your research a bit to make sure it falls within the mission of the institute, but this tool provides solutions regarding where you should start.
Task #2: Pick a fellowship.
There are two main groups of fellowships that predocs and postdocs apply to: F-awards and K-awards.
F-Awards: Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) for Individual Fellows. Most predocs apply for the F31 and postdocs apply for the F32. However, there are other very interesting F-awards out there, like the F99, a predoc to postdoc transition award that I just learned about from the NIH website.
K-Awards: Research Career Development Awards
More or less these awards bridge the end of your postdoc and the beginning of your independent lab. As a result, these are considered transition awards (i.e. the training plan you write for these is very different from the F-awards, a topic I will hopefully discuss later). Most postdocs apply for the Pathway to Independence Award (K99).
Task #3: Make a timeline
Both the F-awards and K-awards have a unique set of three due dates each year for new applications and renewed/resubmitted/revised applications. Make a timeline and make sure you include the following:
(i) Your eligibility for the particular grant and institute you are applying to. Remember, most institutes “start the postdoc clock” once you get your PhD degree, not when you start in the lab. So, make sure you have the correct start date!
(ii) Time to reapply. Remember, if you apply in cycle 1 (aka. the first date), then you will not get your comments back in time to resubmit something meaningful in cycle 2, thus your next available date for resubmitting is actually cycle 3. You need to take this all into account when you make the initial submission… which is probably much earlier than you think.
Phew… that’s was a lot. Hope this helps.
Happy writing and researching!