Thursday, October 16, 2008

Grant Proposals with Dr. Cheryl Holt


Dr. Cheryl Holt
, an Associate Professor in the Department of Public and Community Health, has been on a grant proposal winning streak as of late, being awarded a CDC grant about reasons for low follow-up in black CRC patients and an NCI grant about religion-health mechanisms among African-American men and women (here's a link to get more information on both grants). The Healthy Turtle talked with Dr. Holt about the work that goes into a grant proposal and how grant funding impacts public health.

Healthy Turtle: Why are grants important to public health research?

Dr. Cheryl Holt: Extramural funding is critical for public health research because without it, the science of public health would be severely limited and unable to move forward. This would also have the impact of suffocating our evidence-base for practice.

Public health is different from other disciplines where the bulk of the research is conducted with college student populations, using simple laboratory methods or survey methodologies. In public health, research is done in on real-world problems, in real-world settings, often in communities, and this takes extramural support.

HT: What are the key parts in the process of developing a grant application?

Dr. Holt: The grant application development process begins for junior faculty (ultimately as a graduate student) by working with an outstanding mentor who excels in this area. By working with a mentor, you can learn the "ropes" of grantsmanship and the "system", whether it be NIH or another funding agency of interest.

Working with the mentor, or better yet, with a cadre of mentors, you begin to develop what you feel may be a fundable idea. I think it’s best to run this idea by as many seasoned eyes as possible and get feedback on the specific aims of the idea before writing any further.

Once you have a solid concept and set of specific aims, you can then move onto the business of writing the other sections of the proposal—Background and Significance, Preliminary Studies, Research Design and Methodology—all the while receiving feedback from the mentor at each stage.

After a draft has been written, then comes the tweaking phase where the holes are sealed up, the application is reviewed (hopefully) critically by others internally and continually revised, until a "finished" product is achieved.

Oh, and don't forget the budget. The budget support person is critical in this area, our liaison to grants and contracts. They need to be involved as early on in the process as possible and be kept abreast of changes in your science, key personnel, etc.

HT: There seems like a ton of different items to keep track of during this process. How important is time management?

Dr. Holt: On time management, generally people work too close to grant deadlines, for one reason or another. This works well for some folks and not so well for others. A person just has to develop a sense of what they can realistically do within a given period of time, also allowing for their Investigative team and others make their contributions.

Sometimes you can work too far ahead of a grant deadline and lose momentum because there is no sense of urgency, other times you wait too long and then have to wait until the next cycle because you cut it too close. I find that I am usually in either a manuscript writing mode or a grant writing mode, in which I work feverishly on one or the other, but typically not concurrently on both at a high pace. Everyone's different.

And that's just the first submission. One can plan on probably resubmitting most grants, as most don't get funded the first time around. This is where it is helpful to have a thick skin, pay close attention to the reviewer comments, and be persistent. It's a long road and we don't get there quickly, but with persistence we do get there.

HT: Any quick lessons learned that you’d like to share?

Dr. Holt: Here are some things that I find important in the grant development process:

  • Have a significant idea
  • Have a strong investigative team
  • Pay Attention to detail (e.g., grammar, spelling, consistency of terminology)
  • Grow a thick skin for the review process, and pay attention to reviewer comments on revisions
  • PERSISTENCE PERSISTENCE PERSISTENCE
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Cheryl Holt, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public and Community Health.

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