It's titled, Developing and Writing Specific Aims. There are some key elements for developing a good idea. First, you want to be knowledgeable. Take time to extensively read the existing literature. Be thoughtful. Devote time to just thinking about your idea. Be creative. Look for parallels with other fields, and use and or combine tools and approaches in new ways. These may be things that have been used in other fields that may be applicable to your own field. Be open. Try to bounce ideas off of colleagues that have been open to criticism. It's not personal. When someone gives you criticism, they really are trying to help you. Be passionate. So come up with an irresistible idea. You want to be a pioneer in your field. To do that, your idea should be taught about grantsmanship. Once you have a good idea, you have to turn it into a compelling grant. You have to know the basics. You have to know how to complete the application, and some people feel like that isn't a degree in and of itself, but you have to go through the instructions and understand how to complete the application, for example, for NIH. When you apply for a grant, you have to have a good understanding of the purpose of the grant. So what is the mechanism of the grant? What are the funding priorities of that institute? This information you can get online from the – you also should have a good idea of what the funding line is for the institute of interest. Now you have a very good understanding of your grant, but no one else can really understand it. So we're going to focus on looking for consultants, people you're asking to be mentors, potential mentors on your grant. Everyone's going to want to see your specific aims page. So you need to have a draft early on. Now that's not to say it's not going to change, sometimes extensively, from your draft to what you finally submit. However, you do need to have this on paper when you're trying to get collaborators and consultants on your grant. Some people say that almost 50 percent of your grant hours are devoted to your specific aims page. So you can either really engage the reader, or you can actually lose them. So think about – I mean, this is when you're for a study section. And so now you can appreciate how important the essay page is, because that really should be the meat of your grant. Now depending on the reviewer's role for your grant, they may end up reading the whole thing, but again, they may end up only reading the essay page. So that is why it is so important. It really must be compelling. And you have to convey your grant is worth funding. The logic in your essay page has to flow in a linear fashion, and it has to be clear. So someone outside your field needs to understand your essay page, but they also need – they obviously need to understand your entire grant. So whether you're doing – you know, even if you're doing basic science research, similarly, if you do clinical research, you may get a basic scientist as your reviewer. And so that person also has to understand fit. Sometimes it's helpful to start with a snapshot of the entire grant. And your specific aims must directly link to your hypotheses and your objectives. It's often helpful to have a framework, but really organization and clarity are key to making the puzzle fit and to making your reviewer understand what your puzzle pieces are and how they all fit together. The gap that exists in research. And aim is more of a conceptual idea, and which collectively tests all the parts of your hypothesis. So sometimes people get confused between hypotheses, objectives, and aims, and so that's just to kind of lay it out there for you. You know, let the reader know why your research is of public health significance. You want some background for context. You also want to be able to convey why your proposal is innovative and why it definitely needs to be done. You know, what you plan to do, what your specific aims are, and if you have space on that page, your hypotheses. You want to make your primary reviewer your friend right away. You want that person to be on your site. It has to be concise, and remember, on that one page, every single word counts. Then you want to move on to the overall objective of your grant and the rationale, so a paragraph on that and really what is your solution to the problem that exists. Then you want to detail your actual specific aims in a paragraph, and then you want a closing paragraph. So you really want to spell it out, what is the significance of the grant, and why is it innovative. There really shouldn't be a lot of references in the essay page, but critical references should be included. So the next part is the rationale paragraph. What is your solution to the problem? So you want to provide support for your rationale. You want to explain the overall objective of your application. You and your team are qualified, and this should actually nicely dovetail into your aims paragraph. So here's just a middle-aged and older women producing substantial distress at a time when other women are typically trying to build family, career, and economic security. So again, you want your first sentence to catch the reader's eye and to be compelling, that they should read on. So the next paragraph is the specific aims paragraph. You want to define the problem, your experimental plan. Statements for specific aims are better than questions, and don't propose more than what you can do, often called overbearing. Each one should have its own line. As we talked about, specific aims are conceptual, and they're not descriptive. So it's not a description of procedures you're going to be using. It's a concept, or your central hypothesis. And finally, each aim should flow logically to the next aim. Not all research ideas may fall into the models that I'm going to present, but there are just some possible ones. So one possible model would be for each aim to present a different approach to test a central hypothesis. growth factor is required for muscle capillary maintenance. Aim one, develop an adeno-associated viral vector for skeletal muscle gene transfer. Aim two, create a transgenic mouse with LOXP sequences flanking them. They will have proven or tested that original hypothesis, that VEGF is required for muscle capillary maintenance. So here's another model. Another model would be for each aim to develop or define the next logical instrument for evaluation of women with heavy menstrual bleeding. That logically goes to the second phase, questionnaire development and testing. Essay three, to develop a comprehensive menstrual bleeding questionnaire that assesses subjective amount of menstrual bleeding and conditions specific to women with heavy menstrual bleeding using interactive methods of electrophoresis. So here's another example. Specific aim one, to develop a target population and develop an adherence and competence scales, counselor training to evaluate pilot study results and procedures to inform the refinement of the intervention, and this month's postpartum and adolescent mothers. And then listing the secondary hypothesis such that essay one doesn't work out, then you know, essay two through five are a bust. So you know, just think about this. Give this a lot of thought if you notice that your aims are contingent. One dependent aim might be reasonable. It requires compelling rationale to have contingent aims, and if you have contingent aims, you really should provide some sort of alternate strategies to show that if aim one didn't show what you thought it was going to show, what you're going to do about that, how you're going to, why you can or still need to do aim two if aim one doesn't work, for example. Now that is based on the type of research that you're doing, but for example, even though a questionnaire can't be developed, for example, until the focus groups or qualitative research is done, you know you're going to do the qualitative research and the focus groups are going to inform the questionnaire. So it's not like really the focus groups are going to fail at providing you qualitative data that wouldn't allow you to ever develop the questionnaire. That's why those aren't exactly contingent. You know, so just, you know, that's just a note on contingent aims. And finally, a closing paragraph. You want to tie it all together. Again, you want to convince them why they need to fund it. You want to make a note of what your expected outcomes are so the reviewer, you know, has that concretely in their mind. And then what the impact will be. Emphasize your significance. And if you have room, emphasize your very, you know, high-profile collaborators. The disciplinary team of investigators will combine expert satisfaction with the decisions that are made. We'll provide a more comprehensive assessment of patient burden and better-defined outcomes important to women. Some reality checks. Grant writing, you need to start early. And you need to start thinking and putting down on paper some of your specific aims. As you try to find those other pieces to make them fit, you will definitely go back and end up modifying your specific aims page. Everything after that is either going to support their decision, whether a page. There's no clear hypothesis or objective. Proposing too little, not good enough to fund. You propose technical approaches that are not within the realm of your published technical expertise. So you propose to use some, you know, lab-based thing that you've never, ever used before. And you're using someone else's lab, for example, however you didn't include them as a co-investigator, for example. And so then the reviewer will never believe that you can or will complete that part. Lack of focus. So again, the specific aims all have to have a connection to each other. You will never succeed because everyone who writes grants, you know, has been unsuccessful at it at some point. So in summary, identify, convince the reviewer why and that it is a gap. You want to provide your objective and rationale for your research, your hypothesis and specific aims, and then any expected outcomes that will ultimately fill the gap. And that is what you need to focus on in the specific aims page. That concludes our session on writing specific aims, the specific aims page. Thank you for listening.

Developing and Writing Specific Aims

research idea

grant application

specific aims page

grant writers