Specific Aims

or Selling your Science in One Page

Pedro Fernandez-FunezAssistant Professor of Neurology and

Neurosciencepedro.fernandez@neurology.ufl.edu

• The Specific Aims are the template or master plan for your Research Plan

• If this section works well, everything else will fall naturally in place

Russell and Morrison 2010

Capturing the votes

• Reviewers not assigned to your proposal need to catch up during presentation. Abstract, Aims, Significance and Innovation will provide that information

• Include everything that is important and exciting, but without detail

• The Aims provide a conceptual framework for the assigned reviewers. The flow of logic has to be so compelling that other reviewers can follow while someone else is talking

• For a compelling flow of logic, all the components of this section need to be appropriately linked, which requires in-depth understanding of what each component is meant to convey

Russell and Morrison 2010

Tip: outlining is your key to developing linkage and avoid unnecessary detail

Structure of the Specific Aims

Structure of the Specific Aims

The Introduction

• Relevance of proposal to human health• Current knowledge, set up the gap in

knowledge• Gap in knowledge / unmet need

At this point, the reviewers should understand the medical relevance, be up to speed with current knowledge, and should understand that there is a gap in the knowledge base that constitutes an important problem

What, Why, Who• Long-term goal• Objective of this application: the expected

product of the research• Central Hypothesis:– Link to objective, provides focus (direction)– Objectively testable– How it was generated (prelim data, work by others)

• Rationale: what will become possible that is not possible now

The foundation: The Hypothesis

http://medicine.emory.edu/research/R_series.cfm

Specific Aims paragraph• Convey specific about the research• Grow from hypothesis, test its parts• Brief, informative, attention-getting headlines

• Each aim should convey WHY that part is proposed, not WHAT will be done

• Your aims should answer the question: WHY am I proposing this part?

• Avoid descriptive words: compare, correlate, investigate, determine

• 3-4 aims for RO1, 2 for smaller grants, not interdependent

Spelling out your aims

No funding to generate Tg animals

Not hypothesis-driven. Open-ended discovery

Not hypothesis-driven

Interdependent aims

Specific Aims template (beware of templates)

The Payoff paragraph

• Expected outcomes of the research• Positive Impact

Linear progression of logic

GAP

Objective

Central Hypothesis

Specific Aims

Expected Outcomes

Consider a diagram of your aims

From the experts:

• Keep it simple – expect that your reviewers will be smart but not necessarily experts in your field.

• NIH reviewers are unlikely to review grants directly in their field of expertise

Revise, Revise, Revise

• As you write your ideas down, they will become clearer

• As your ideas become clearer revise your aims page

• Writing a grant is a wonderful opportunity to focus the efforts of your lab– What is most important– What has to get done quickly

Final thoughts

• Start early

• Grant writing is hard work

• Administrative stuff takes A LOT OF TIME– Get it done early!!!!!!

• Talk through your aims with your colleagues

• Refine and revise your aims as you write the body of the grant – it is okay if they change

• Writing a grant is fun – it is an opportunity to refocus and take your research to the next level !!!!

• Talk with your NIH Program Officer – they have great advice and are your advocate

Good Luck!!!!