CREATE A VISION WITH THE HELP OF A MENTOR
In spite of my advice in Tip #1 to start
small, this does not mean that you should not have a vision. Indeed, it is
critical that postdoctoral fellows and early-career faculty have a big vision.
Each small grant—be it a seed grant, a postdoctoral fellowship, or an early-career
award—should be viewed as providing preliminary data for one or two of the
specific aims of your ultimate larger grant. Typically, large grants are funded
by the NIH R01 mechanism. Therefore, early on in the process, it is critical to
try to envision your ultimate large project. For example, lets assume that a
typical R01 contains three to five specific aims. Once you are able to envision
these aims, your next steps become clear: Step by step, you start biting off
small chunks of this larger grant through writing small grants designed to
support one or two of these ultimate aims. These small grants should not be
designed to provide the definitive answer to these aims but instead to show
that the aims are feasible and/or provide preliminary data in thier support.
These small grants will be limited by smaller sample sizes and budgets, but
will be able to show proof of principal—that you can pull it off (see Tip #5).
Seek the advice of your mentor
A key factor in developing a vision of your
ultimate large project is the advice of your mentor(s). If you do not currently
have a mentor, speak to your department chair and ask if they can provide you
with a mentor. If not, it is usually considered acceptable to seek out your own
mentor. Indeed, many early-career faculty will assemble a mentorship team, each
member of which can provide guidance in different career aspects (e.g., a
teaching mentor, a research mentor). Consider both on-site and off-site
faculty as potential mentors. In this age of teleconferencing and e-mail, I
often find that I communicate more with my off-site mentors than with those
directly down the hall. You can use web-based resources such as Community of
Science (COS) (http://pivot.cos.com/) and NIH Reporter
(http://projectreporter.nih.gov/reporter. cfm) to help locate a potential
mentor by searching on your topic and identifying a list of PI names. Then view
the grant track record by which these investigators achieved their aims. Ask
yourself if it matches up with where you want to be in your grantmaking career.
Key
pitfalls to avoid
Early-career faculty want to be successful
and, as such, are often tempted by the wish to immediately make a big impact
and land a big grant. Others are under pressure from their institutions and
department chairs to immediately apply for a large grant (e.g., an NIH R01)
without a track record of smaller grant funding. In my experience as an NIH
review panel member, this approach is almost certainly destined to fail. Review
panels often see a large grant as the culmination of a growing body of work.
They want to see evidence of this stairway to success and its your job to
demonstrate that you have been on this stairway. You do this by showing your
successful procurement and management of previous smaller grants, as well as
the translation of these grants into publications. A desirable grant-funding
history starts from small seed grants progressing to larger and larger awards
in a cumulative fashion. Chapter 17, Choosing the Right Funding Source,
provides example plans for a steady trajectory of grants from small to large.
While it is always tempting to skip to the last page of a novel to see what
happens, one needs to earn ones way there. There are certainly some exceptions
to this rule. For example, you may be an early career faculty member within a
research team that already has a track record in your area. If so, you could
take advantage of their expertise by including them as coinvestigator(s) or
even as a co-PI on your proposal. In addition, because they are participating
on the grant, you gain the advantage of including their preliminary data in
your application. However, as described in Chapter 19, Review Process, and
Chapter 20, Resubmission of the Grant Proposal, one of the key criteria upon
which a grant is scored is the expertise of the PI. Regardless of your
investigative team, if you are the PI, the reviewers will be looking for your
track record in managing a large grant. It is unlikely you will be able to
provide this assurance of feasibility at an early stage in your career.
START EARLY
These days, funding is more difficult to obtain than it has ever
been before. However, graduate students and early-career faculty have certain
advantages upon which they can capitalize. In fact, given the current challenging
economic climate, making the most of these advantages is now more important
than ever. Doctoral and postdoctoral granting mechanisms as well as
early-career awards provide the highest chances for success. A primary
advantage of these mechanisms is that they typically do not require significant
preliminary data. This is fortuitous, as you are unlikely to have preliminary
data at this point in your career. Instead, funding decisions for these awards
rely most heavily on your promise and potential as a candidate. This potential
is indicated by three items:
A. Your
education to date (including prior publications and project-related
experience).
B. The
mentors with which you have surrounded yourself .
C. The
public health importance of your topic
A key advantage of these funding mechanisms is that, unlike
larger grant awards, you will be competing in a smaller pool of investigators
all of whom will be at a comparable stage in their careers as yourself. This
advantage should not be minimized, as it avoids the risk of competing against
senior investigators who already have established track records. As a senior
investigator once said, 'Avoid competing against the big boys and girls
as long as you can!' This advantage that you now have will quickly be over
after several years pass by and you find yourself no longer eligible for these
early-career investigator awards. Therefore, if you are a graduate student,
seek out grant mechanisms designed for graduate students. Such grants include National
Institutes of Health (NIH) predoctoral (F31) and postdoctoral (F32) fellowship
awards. If you are an early-career faculty member, look for grants designed for
early-career faculty members. These may include small seed-money grants
provided by your university (e.g., Faculty Research Grants) or foundation
grants targeted for career development (e.g., the American Diabetes Association
Career Award, the March of Dimes Starter Scholar Award). In addition, NIH
offers career development awards such as the K series awards. At the same time,
always be on the lookout for opportunities to collaborate as a coinvestigator
on other applications where the principal investigator (PI) is a senior,
established investigator. If you need help identifying these programs, most
universities have resources to help you find grants relevant to your interest
area and level. Online services are available as well. Chapter 17, Choosing the
Right Funding Source, provides an in-depth discussion of how to locate these
opportunities.
LOOK AT WHO AND WHAT THEY FUNDED BEFORE YOU
Funding agencies will often make publicly
available a list of prior grant awardees. These lists may include the grant
title, recipient name, amount awarded, and institution. If the granting agency
does not provide a list of past grant recipients, your own institutions grants
and contracts office may have a list of investigators on your campus who have
obtained these same grants. Look over this list and see if you or your mentors
know any of these investigators. This is useful for several reasons. First, it
shows the interest of the funding agency in funding research in epidemiology
and preventive medicine. Some funding agencies simply dont have the
interest or track record in funding population-based research and instead limit
their funding to laboratory studies (bench science). Second, it is reasonable
to consider asking successful fundus to share their applications with you,
particularly if you, or your mentors, recognize any names on the fundee list or
see that they are from your institution. Reassure these successfully funded
investigators that you are simply seeking a model for the appropriate scope and
depth of the research plan, not the actual content of their aims. When framed
in this manner, people are typically willing to share.
Funding websites are a rich
source of information
In addition to posting prior grant awardees
on their website, funding agencies may also post a list of prior and current
grant reviewers and their affiliations. Go through this list and review the
expertise of these investigators. Ask yourself if their expertise overlaps with
your study aims and methodology. For example, are any of these investigators
population health researchers? Are any from similar departments/divisions to
yours? It would be a high-risk proposition to write a proposal for a foundation
that does not include investigators in epidemiology and preventive medicine on
their review panels.
SPEND HALF YOUR TIME ON THE ABSTRACT AND
SPECIFIC AIMS
The bulk of your writing time should be spent
refining your abstract and specific aims. Indeed, writers of successful grant
applications typically report that 50% of their time was spent on revising and
rewriting their specific aims (Figure 1.1). The specific aims should be the
first item that you write when you set pen to paper, prior to writing a
literature review or methodology section. Early in the process, send a one-page
sketch of your study design and aims—in the manner of an NIH grant—to your
mentor and coinvestigators with the goal of kicking off an iterative process of
rewriting, revising, and rereviewing. In addition, it is critical that these
aims be understandable by anyone with a scientific background. Chapter 3, How
to Develop and Write Hypotheses, discusses strategies and writing conventions
for developing hypotheses and specific aims including exercises and annotated
examples and tips. Another excellent resource is the NIH Reporter
(http://projectreporter.nih.gov/ reporter.cfm). This site can be invaluable in
helping you to formulate the scope of your grant. This site lists abstracts of
both active and prior NIH awards. Because these awards have all successfully
been funded, they serve as excellent examples. Viewing funded abstracts can
help you answer the following questions: “How many aims did the investigators
include?” “What was their sample size?” You can limit your search to particular
key terms as well as particular grant mechanisms (e.g., smaller and larger
awards). The output, in addition to listing the abstract, will also provide
the name of the review panel and the NIH institute. Therefore, surfing the
NIH Reporter is not only useful for both the smaller grant mechanisms but also
for envisioning the ultimate larger grant. More on NIH is included in Part
Three “Grantsmanship.” One reason that specific aims are so critical is the
nature of the peer review process, described in more detail in Chapter 19,
Review Process. Briefly, because only three to four reviewers are assigned as
primary and secondary reviewers of your grant, the majority of reviewers on the
review panel may only read your abstract and/or specific aims during the 10–20
min time period that the grant is discussed. Therefore, it is critical that the
aims not only provide a snapshot of the entire study but also convey what is
novel. Chapter 15, Abstracts and Titles, provides tips and strategies for how
to write, and what merits inclusion, in your abstract. See Figure 1.1. After
drafting your aims, the second step in this process is to calculate your
statistical power to achieve these aims. This will help you to answer the
question, “Will your sample size provide you with sufficient power to detect a
difference between groups, if there is truly a difference?” If you are basing
your grant upon a preexisting dataset, your sample size is typically fixed, and
the question of whether or not you have adequate power can be answered quickly.
A negative answer, while disappointing, can quickly and efficiently result in a
change in study aims. If instead you are proposing to launch a new study and
recruit participants, you can choose the sample size you need to achieve
sufficient power. However, in this case, progressing to Step #3 of calculating
the budget will be critical. A common pitfall of new investigators is to be too
ambitious—proposing a larger sample size than they have the budget and
experience to handle. Chapter 11, Power and Sample Size, provides user-friendly
approaches to power and sample size calculations, available software, and
annotated examples with strategies and tips. Therefore, the third step is to
evaluate if your budget can afford your required sample size. The number of
participants will have an immediate impact on the costs of conducting your
study. Such costs include the number of assays, interviewer time for
recruitment and follow-up, as well as the cost of participant incentives. Also,
ask yourself whether your study site can feasibly provide this number of
participants. For example, does the hospital actually see that number of
patients per day/week/year? Are that many patients likely to be eligible and
agree to participate? Such questions of feasibility can be answered by your own
preliminary work, by that of your coinvestigators, or by other investigators at
your proposed study site. Alternatively, if you are proposing a pilot grant,
you can clearly state that the goal of your pilot is to assess recruitment and
eligibility rates to calculate power for a larger grant submission. Chapter 8,
Summarizing Preliminary Studies, describes this approach in greater detail.
Now, in light of everything you have learned from Steps 1, 2, and 3, and
incorporating your mentors and colleagues feedback, go back and refine the aims
and start the process over again. Once you have settled on the aims, you will
find that writing the rest of the application will flow easily. As described in
Part Two of this text, “The Proposal: Section by Section,” each section of a
well-written grant proposal flows directly from and mirrors components of the
specific aims.
SHOW THAT YOU CAN PULL IT OFF
Showing that you can logistically and
feasibly conduct the proposed grant is critical if you are a graduate student
or early-career faculty. Assurance that you can pull it off is a key factor for
which the reviewer is seeking reassurance and can be accomplished through
several techniques. First, if possible, collaborate with senior investigators
who have conducted similar grants in similar populations. Their involvement on
your proposal will be a critical factor supporting your potential for success.
Capitalize
upon your coinvestigators
It is important that these coinvestigators do
not appear in name only. Show established working relationships with these
investigators via either coauthored publications (or submitted publications
under review), co-presentations, or an established mentoring relationship
(e.g., as part of a training grant). Another way to show an ongoing
relationship with coinvestigators is to list grants on which you are both
investigators or consultants. Of course, much of this information will appear
in your bio sketches, but you cannot rely upon the reviewers to connect the
dots between you and your coinvestigators. Instead, make it easy for the
reviewers by pointing out this prior collaboration in your Preliminary Studies
Section. Specific examples of this grantsmanship strategy as well as others are
discussed in detail in Chapter 8, Summarizing Preliminary Studies. A second way
to show that you can pull it off is to present evidence that you have conducted
smaller feasibility studies as mentioned in Tip #1. Such feasibility studies
can provide key data on a number of factors. They can provide evidence that
you, as a PI, are able to recruit subjects and collect data. Such preliminary
data have the added benefit of providing key figures necessary for calculating
power and sample size for your larger grants. Participant satisfaction surveys
administered in a feasibility study can provide data on the acceptability of
your methods. Validation studies of your proposed methods (as described in
Chapter 14, Reproducibility and Validity Studies) can provide assurance that a
study based upon these methods will work. In summary, ideally, the goal is to
show proof of principal.
Avoid
interdependent aims
It is important to acknowledge here that in
earlier, more economically advantaged times, it was considered acceptable for a
large NIH R01 grant to include pilot studies within its aims. However, in the
current climate, reviewers do not look favorably upon this approach. They
naturally ask, “What if the pilot study finds that the methods are not
successful? How would the investigator accomplish the subsequent aims of the
project?” For example, imagine if aim 1 proposes to conduct a validation study
of the questionnaire to be used in aims 2 and 3. If aim 1 subsequently fails to
find that the questionnaire is valid, then how can the remainder of the project
proceed? These are termed interdependent aims and reviewers often consider such
aims to be a fatal flaw of a proposal. In Chapter 6, Specific Aims,
I describe how to create a strong set of study aims, avoiding this as well
as other pitfalls.
YOUR METHODS SHOULD MATCH YOUR AIMS AND VICE
VERSA
A typical pitfall that early-career
investigators fall into is to fail to include methods to address each of their
study aims or, alternatively, to include additional methods that do not
correspond to any study aims. These scenarios can simply be summed up as (1)
proposing to study A and B, but only including methods for A, or (2)
proposing to study A, but including methods designed to measure A and B. The
former situation will be viewed by reviewers as an important omission. For
mentored career award applications, in particular, this mistake may be
attributed to the mentor, which in some ways is even worse than having the
error attributed to you. That is, this mistake can be interpreted as an
indicator of poor mentorship either due to minimal effort by the mentor (e.g.,
in failure to spend time to adequately review your proposal) or due to the
inability of the mentor to detect this problem at all. It may be viewed as
reflective of the future amount and content of mentorship that you would be
receiving over the course of the grant period if awarded.
Avoid
being overly ambitious
The latter situation, in which the grant
describes more analyses than are necessary to conduct the stated aims, is a
great temptation of early-career investigators who are often driven to
demonstrate to the reviewers how rich the dataset will be and therefore how
many questions they can answer. However, this approach can be viewed as overly
ambitious. An ambitious application is one of the most common reason for
reviewers to give an application a poor score (or to triage the application, as
described in Chapter 19, Review Process). Instead, it is much more impressive
to exercise restraint and have a focused plan with a data analysis section
directly tied to the specific aims. However, there are some specific situations
where it is reasonable to mention additional methods that do not correspond to
the proposed aims. For example, in a small grant proposal (e.g., a seed grant),
it is often reasonable to state that some data will be collected solely to
support subsequent grant applications. However, this is only considered
appropriate when it is highly efficient both in terms of study design and
participant burden to collect this information in real time, as opposed to
returning to participants at a later point in time. The application could
state, In this example, it is clear that trying to collect this information at
a later point in time would not be feasible, either because the samples would
no longer be available or because disease may have already occurred and thereby
influenced levels of these samples. In these situations, a data analysis plan
would not be included for these proposed future aims. So, moving forward, there
are several ways to ensure that your methods match up with your aims and vice
versa. The most traditional approach (and the approach that is most kind to
your reviewer) is to copy your aims verbatim from the specific aims page and
repeat them, in italics, in the data analysis section. Below each italicized
aim, you will insert the relevant statistical analysis designed to achieve this
aim. Alternatively, another acceptable approach is to format the structure of
the proposal sequentially such that aim #1 is immediately followed by the methods
to achieve aim #1; aim #2 follows, and is immediately followed with the methods
to achieve aim #2, etc. This approach tends to only be efficient when each aim
has a distinct methodologic and data analysis plan. Otherwise, you run the risk
of repetition of similar methods and wasteful use of precious space. In Chapter
9, Study Design and Methods, and Chapter 10, Data Analysis Plan, I describe
tips for efficient writing of methods and data analyses sections corresponding
to study aims.
A
PROPOSAL CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY FIGURES OR TABLES
In general, the more figures and tables in a
grant application, the better. Not only does the process of creating these
figures and tables help you to crystallize your specific aims and study
methods, but they are also kinder to the reviewers. As compared to dense text,
tables and figures are easier for the reviewer to digest and help them more
quickly grasp your methods. This fact should not be underestimated given how
pressed the reviewer is for time. Figures and tables also demonstrate your
grasp of your proposal and your organizational skills. They can save space by
reducing the text—critical for the page limitations of most proposals. Indeed,
the inclusion of figures and tables is relevant for every section of a grant
application. For example, in the specific aims section, a figure showing how
the specific aims interrelate is always appreciated by reviewers (Chapter 6,
Specific Aims). Another key figure displaying your anticipated results can be
placed in the Background and Significance section (see Chapter 7, Background
and Significance Section). Some reviewers feel that this latter figure is
essential. Other examples include study design figures, tables listing study
variables, and statistical power displays. The grant application often ends
with a timeline figure—showing each study activity and the quarters during
which it will be conducted. Chapter 9, Study Design and Methods shows examples
of key tables and figures that can be used throughout the proposal, ranging
from specific aims tables and study design figures to tables for the data
analysis and power/ sample size sections.
SEEK EXTERNAL REVIEW PRIOR TO SUBMISSION
It is generally acknowledged that a local
mock study section review almost doubles your chances of funding. A study
section is defined as the NIH review panel that conducts the initial scientific
merit review of research applications. Mock study sections simulate a real
study section by following the grant review process as closely as possible. To
provide even greater mentorship, a mock NIH study section can be modified in a
few key ways from a true NIH study section. For example, early-career faculty
can be invited to sit in on mock study sections as silent observers. While it
may be stressful to watch the reviewers discuss your proposal, you will
experience first-hand the dynamics of study section deliberations and the
proposal review process becomes demystified. After the session is over, many
mock sessions schedule a short debriefing period to allow early-career faculty
to ask questions and talk directly with the reviewers. This differs
substantively from a true study section after which you will only receive
written comments from the reviewers. NIH posts video tapes of mock study
sections on their website. These are invaluable to watch. Another useful way to
get constructive feedback on your proposal is to participate in a chalk-talk
forum. These consist of informal seminars to discuss your research ideas and/or
specific aims early in the process—prior to writing a full proposal.
If your department does not currently offer such a forum, suggest that
they start one. Chapter 16, Presenting Your Proposal Orally, provides a
step-by-step guide for creating an oral and visual presentation of your proposal.
Some departments will fund early-career faculty to attend local and national
grant-writing workshops and will compensate outside scientists, with expertise
on the proposed topic, to review and critique your grant proposals. Your office
of grants and contracts may sponsor a grantsmanship seminar series or brown bag
lunch session in which you can participate. Lastly, many departments will
enlist the services of a grant writer. By encouraging you to concisely convey
your aims and methods as clearly as possible, the best grant writers will help
you to further refine your specific aims and convey the potential impact of
your findings. Real-world (not mock) submission and resubmission processes are
carefully described in a step-by-step manner with accompanying strategic tips
in Chapter 18, Submission of the Grant Proposal, Chapter 19, Review Process,
and Chapter 20, Resubmission of the Grant Proposal.
BE KIND TO YOUR REVIEWERS
Reviewers are assigned a large number of
applications to read and discuss. This task is in addition to their own
responsibilities as a researcher themselves. So, a happy reviewer should be one
of your top goals.
Subheadings
should match review criteria
The most effective way to make a reviewer
happy is to help them complete their review forms. Every reviewer, regardless
of funding agency, is required to use a structured critique form. For example,
NIH reviewers are required to write bullet points on the strengths and
weaknesses of overall impact, significance, investigators, innovation,
approach, and environment. However, the formatting requirements of NIH
grant applications do not require clearly labeled sections for each of
these criteria. Therefore, the first way to be kind to your reviewers is
by using these key terms as subheadings in your application. For example, the
reviewer must describe whether they believe your grant is innovative. You may
have thought that the innovative aspects of your application were obvious and
therefore failed to include a specific subsection on innovation. This is risky.
Not only may the reviewer fail to see all the innovative aspects of your
proposal, but you run the risk that they may not deduce any innovation at all.
Simply including a clearly labeled subsection on innovation will save the reviewer
time. It does not guarantee that they will agree with you but provides a basis
for their draft of that section in their critique. In Chapter 7, Background and
Significance Section, I describe tips for writing the innovation section.
Highlight
key sentences
A second key kindness is to bold, or
otherwise highlight, one key sentence in each paragraph of the Background and
Significance section. Indeed, the act of searching for this key sentence
provides the added benefit of ensuring that each paragraph does indeed have a
key point. With space at a premium in grant proposals (e.g., current limits for
the research strategy for smaller NIH grants can be as low as six pages), each
paragraph needs to count. Another way to be kind to the reviewers is in the
Preliminary Studies section. The description of each preliminary study should
end with a sentence specifying the rationale for why it is relevant to the
current proposal. This summary sentence removes the burden on the reviewer. It
is your job to connect the dots between your preliminary work and how it
relates to or supports your proposed aims. The act of creating these
sentences also serves a dual purpose of ensuring that you are not
including extraneous preliminary findings not directly relevant to your
aims. Examples of such summaries are provided in Chapter 8, Summarizing
Preliminary Studies. Another way of being kind to the reviewer is by inserting
a brief summary paragraph at the very beginning of the Methods section that
encapsulates all the key features of the study design. This paragraph would
give the sample size, study population, study design (e.g., prospective cohort
case–control study, cross-sectional study), the key assessment tools to be used
(e.g., self-reported questionnaire, plasma samples, medical record data), and
any other key features of your study methods. This will help the reviewer to
concisely present your study to the review panel. Examples of such summaries
are provided in Chapter 9, Study Design and Methods.
The
same person cannot write a proposal and review it for clarity
Regardless of how carefully you reread your
grant, and no matter how conscientious you are, simply by virtue of your
familiarity with the material, you will not be able to review it for final
clarity. One common approach is to ask your colleagues to read the application.
It is well accepted that a wellwritten application should be readable and
understandable by anyone with scientific knowledge. Therefore, it is not
necessary that your readers have expertise in your area of interest and perhaps
even preferable if they do not. While this is often surprising to hear, it is
important to note that some of your assigned grant reviewers may not have
expertise in your area of interest. That is, while one reviewer may have a specific
background in your area, others are assigned based on their expertise in the
proposed methodology (e.g., epidemiology), and others are assigned to review
the statistical analysis section. For example, a grant designed to identify
risk factors for infertility may be assigned to the following three reviewers:
(1) a physician who has a track record of publications on in vitro
fertilization techniques, (2) an epidemiologist who has conducted prospective
cohort studies among infertile women, and (3) a statistician. It is even
possible that the physician or the epidemiologist will not have direct
experience with infertility but are instead more generalist reproductive or
perinatal epidemiologists. However, it is reassuring to note that, if your
proposal is well written, even a generalist reviewer will be able to assess (1)
whether your goals are clearly stated, (2) whether your proposal clearly
justifies how it extends prior work in the field, (3) what is innovative about
your proposal, as well as (4) the impact of your potential findings on public
health and clinical practice. In recent years, the last point has become a
critical factor in funding decisions. With the recent revision in the NIH grant
review process, reviewers now prioritize the overall impact. This aspect alone
is often the most critical in the assigned score for an application. In Chapter
7, Background and Significance Section, I outline tips for writing this
section. Chapter 19, Review Process, describes how these sections are
considered in the review process. In summary, the underpinning of all of these
kindnesses is to remember that it is not the job of the reviewer to justify the
importance of your proposal but instead your job to lay out your rationale and
give the reviewers the opportunity to critique it. You do the work; they
conduct the critique. This is the recipe for a happy reviewer.
IF AT ALL POSSIBLE, CHOOSE A TOPIC THAT YOU
FIND INTERESTING!
There is nothing less conducive to your
future success and day-to-day productivity than choosing a topic that you do
not find interesting. However, given todays difficult grantfunding climate, the
only way to ensure grant success is to have several proposals in the pipeline
and/or under review at once. In this way, even if all the initiatives are not
the most interesting to you, at least one of them will likely be. It is even
more preferable if these initiatives fit within an overall research theme (as
discussed in Tip #2: Create a Vision) so that, in the wonderful event that all
are funded, they can all serve as pilot data for your larger R01-type grant.
Another way to ensure success is to also serve as a coinvestigator on a grant
led by one of your senior colleagues while you are beginning your own
independent research track. The advantages of serving as a coinvestigator on
ongoing or new proposals submitted by your more established colleagues should
not be underestimated. These grants will require a somewhat reduced effort on
your part (in comparison to being PI). In addition, because ongoing projects
were underway before you joined, you can also anticipate an earlier payoff in
terms of timing of published manuscripts. Joining an established research
project also provides you with the opportunity to apply for supplementary
funding that builds upon the aims (and the established methods and successes)
of these ongoing grants. All this being said, developing your own independent
line of research proposals is important. Indeed, one criterion for tenure and
promotion at many research institutes is movement away from the area of your
dissertation work and development of independence in your own research aims. If
the work of your departmental colleagues does not relate to your area, then
other collegial relationships and sources of grant data can be found in many
locations—be they across campus or even across the state or country (see
Chapter 17, Choosing the Right Funding Source). Luckily, in these days of
electronic communication, Skype, and other electronic media, it has become
increasingly easy to communicate with colleagues at other institutions
electronically.
