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THE ROOKIE PI

When is the best time to apply for one's first grant?

Reader Question: I have been told by my university that I need to apply for a grant to fund my research, but how do I know when I am ready to to do so? How much preliminary data do I need?

Expert Comments:

Some claim that you need to have already “done the work” before you can write a grant proposal. Others counsel submitting the preliminary research first. While the latter approach has been used successfully, it is quite problematic for a new faculty member, since they won’t have access to a lot of preliminary data.

My first successful R01 proposal as an independent investigator was one for which I already had one paper in the area as an independent scientist, and I had obtained some additional preliminary data subsequent to that. Having the publication in a high-profile journal added to my credibility.

Subsequently, I’ve had proposals funded without as much preliminary data, but I already had a track record in the field, which to some extent substituted for data.

From these experiences, I can boil it down to a fairly simple rule: Either you should have one or more publications worth of preliminary data, or you should have been working in the field long enough to establish a clear track record.

Most new investigators will be in the first category. If so, do you submit your proposal before having a publication, or do you wait until your article is accepted for a journal?

This will depend on your budgetary situation. But if you have the time, you should wait until acceptance of your first paper gives you the extra credibility of being an independent investigator. The new NIH rules allow only one resubmission of a proposal that fails to get funded the first time. Therefore you will want to maximize your chances of success the first time. Having an accepted paper helps.

If you are in a situation where you have budgetary pressures causing you to apply for funding before having a published paper, then you should tell a very strong story in the required sections on your background and training, along with what preliminary data you’ve already acquired.

I estimate that the typical timing on this will be 1.5 to two years from starting up an independent lab, though that will vary. Young investigators often think they can get going quickly (I did!), but just obtaining all the supplies and recruiting good personnel can take six months. Then it often takes six months to a year or more to produce worthwhile data. And for many journals, the publication cycle takes at least another six months after submission, review, revision, re-review, acceptance, and proofing.

It is important to keep this long timetable in mind in planning whether and when to apply for funding. If you are getting to within six to eight months of when funding will run out, you may have to go ahead and apply without a publication, as long as you have enough preliminary data that you’ll be submitting something soon.

For NIH proposals, the new format may assist young investigators. There is no longer an explicit “preliminary results” section into which senior investigators can put reams of data. Instead, the preliminaries are directly incorporated into the “Approach” section, along with the research you will be doing. I suggest that that you clearly state each aim, convey what you’ve already done to prove its feasibility, then present what you will do.

Bottom line: All investigators — rookies and veterans — must market their science and their capabilities very effectively in a grant proposal in order to get funding.

This eAlert is brought to you as an informational training tool by the Principal Investigators Association, which is an independent organization. Neither the eAlert nor its contents have any connection with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), nor are they endorsed by this agency. All views expressed are those personally held by the author and are not official government policies or opinions.