Plan to Submit your Grant Proposal

NIH eSubmission Tips for Investigators (Read this first!)

http://era.nih.gov/electronicreceipt/files/PI_Advice.pdf

Biostatistics Proposal Development

Inform the Department Administrator, Linda Stewart, when you plan to submit a grant. This is helpful in planning work around NIH grant deadlines and in coordinating with the Vanderbilt Office of Grants and Contracts. Whether or not your research involves Human Subjects, it is important that you speak with our Research Nurse Specialist, Peggy Schuyler, early on so that she can begin to work through issues related to hospital IRB. Your Grants Manager (GM), Donna Bock, will work closely with you to assist in the preparation of your proposal. _NOTE: Your grant title cannot exceed 81 characters including spaces!_

The following links may be useful as you prepare to submit a grant proposal:

• Office of Grants and Contracts http://www.vanderbilt.edu/oor/gcm/
• NIH Due Dates, Application forms and instructions, Review and Award Cycles http://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/submissionschedule.htm
• NIH FAQs http://grants.nih.gov/grants/frequent_questions.htm *
• Other useful sites http://era.nih.gov/ http://crisp.cit.nih.gov/ http://www.grants.gov/

COEUS

COEUS is Vanderbilt's vehicle for proposal development and electronic submission. It is strongly recommended that you attend COEUS 5: COEUS for PIs and Approvers, especially if you are a new investigator. You may register for COEUS 5 by logging into RATE https://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/gcm/rate/main.php. You will also find the entire COEUS manual and other aids at this site. Following is an overview of COEUS 5 in case you are unable to attend training. COEUS for PIs and Approvers.

Narrative Sections of a Grant Proposal

The attached is taken from the COEUS Premium manual and should be a helpful guide in meeting the various narrative requirements. NARRATIVES. GM also has this available as a handout.

Submit the following narratives to GM, each in a separate word file, to be converted to pdf and uploaded into COEUS. This information is derived from the COEUS manual and is representative of typical proposals. Your specific guidelines will trump these guidelines.

The Research Plan

_NOTE: The first four elements (aka "The Science") cannot exceed 25 pages for an R01 or 15 pages for an R21_

Specific Aims

• Always required
• Applicants should follow page limits outlined in the specific announcement

Background & Significance

• 2-3 pages recommended

Preliminary Studies

• Peer review committees generally view preliminary data as essential
• 6-8 pages recommended
• Do NOT include publications here

Research Design and Methods

• No specific number of pages but be succinct

Appendix

• Maximum of 10 PDF attachments allowed
• A summary sheet listing all of the items included in the Appendix is encouraged but not required
• Do Not use the Appendix to circumvent the page limitations of the Research Plan

Protection of Human Subjects

• Always consult Research Nurse Specialist who will facilitate IRB review
• If "YES" to Human Subjects, you must include
  • Inclusion of Women and Minorities
  • Targeted/Planned Enrollment
  • Inclusion of Children

Letters of Support

Less commonly used Narratives include:

• Introduction (for resubmissions and revisions only)
• Inclusion Enrollment Report (Clinical research only)
• Progress Report Publication List
• Vertebrate Animals
• Select Agent Research
• Multiple-PI Leadership Plan
• Consortium/Contractual Agreement
• Resource Sharing Plan

The Business Plan

Project Summary, aka Abstract

• Informative to others working in related fields, understandable to scientific or technically literate lay reader
• Do not describe past accomplishments
• Do not use first person
• This section must be no longer than 30 lines of text

Narrative (Relevance)

• Describe the relevance of this research to public health
• No more than 2 or 3 sentences
• Understandable to the general, lay reader

Facilities

• Describes the capabilities of the organizational resources Typically retrieved by GM from TWiki

Equipment

• List major items of equipment available for this project and pertinent capabilities Typically retrieved by GM from TWiki

Bibliography

• Provide a bibliography of references cited in the Research Plan
• No page limitation

Budget Justification

• For a non-Modular budget, detail all expense, personnel and non-personnel, with the purpose for each category of expense
• Personnel Justification for modular budget only-no need to detail non-salary expense
  • Include all personnel, names, number of calendar months devoted to the project
• Non-Personnel Justification detailing the purpose for each category expense
• Narrative Justification
  • Describe variations from year to year or changing number of modules if submitting a modular budget
• Modular Budget submissions require Personnel Justification only and Narrative Justification as needed; there is no need for non-personnel expense justification

Cover Letter

• Applicants are encouraged to submit a cover letter
• May request assignment/referral to a particular Scientific Review Group

*MORE TO COME...* %_%*

Grant Submission Timeline 2008

Suggested Timeline

Table of Grants Initiated by Department of Biostatistics

since June 07 inception of COEUS on-line submission