Show Notes
Description
This episode of FAMEcast is proudly co-sponsored by FAME and Widening Impact in Medicine and Science (WIMS) at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Through this partnership, we are better equipped to offer meaningful dialogue and insightful perspectives to our College of Medicine faculty.
Dr Cynthia Gerhardt and Dr Darren Mays visit the FAMEcast studio as we decipher the alphabet soup of grant funding. Whether you are just starting your research journey… or looking to secure your next major award, understanding the grant landscape is essential. We hope you can join us!
Topics
Grant Funding
Medical Research
Learning Objectives
At the end of this activity, participants should be able to:
- Identify major federal grant funding agencies relevant to medical research.
- Differentiate among various grant mechanisms (e.g., R01, R21, K awards) and their alignment with different stages of a research project.
- Outline the basic process for preparing, submitting, and managing a grant proposal.
- Evaluate strategies for seeking mentorship and institutional support in the grant-writing process.
Guests
Dr Cynthia Gerhardt
Chief Clinical Research Officer
Nationwide Children’s Hospital
Dr Darren Mays
Assistant Dean for Research and Tenure Track Faculty
The Ohio State University College of Medicine
Links
SPIN Funding Search
National Institutes of Health
NIH Activity Codes
U.S. National Science Foundation
CDC Grant Funding
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Navigating the NIH’s Alphabet Soup of Federal Funding (YouTube)
Episode Transcript
[Dr Mike Patrick]
This episode of FAMEcast is brought to you by the Center for Faculty Advancement, Mentoring, and Engagement, and Widening Impact in Medicine and Science, also known as WIMS, at The Ohio State University College of Medicine.
[Music]
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of FAMEcast. We are a faculty development podcast from The Ohio State University College of Medicine.
This is Dr. Mike, coming to you from the campus of Ohio State. It’s episode 12. We’re calling this one, Deciphering the Alphabet Soup of Grant Funding.
I want to welcome all of you to the program. We are so happy to have you with us, and we have an important episode this week, especially if you are an academic faculty member involved in research and maybe seeking to secure funding for your projects. We’re diving into the alphabet soup of grant funding, which can be quite complicated and confusing.
We’re going to decipher some of the code, such as AHRQ, NSF, DOD, FOAs, R01s, K awards, and many, many more, because half the battle is simply understanding what all these things mean and how each fits into the broader picture of medical research. So, whether you’re just starting your research journey or looking to secure your next big award, understanding the grant landscape is essential. So, we’re going to break down the funding sources, submission strategies, and tips for success.
Of course, in our usual FAMEcast fashion, we have a couple of terrific guests joining us in the studio to discuss the topic. Dr. Cynthia Gerhardt is Chief Clinical Research Officer at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, and Dr. Darren Mays is Assistant Dean for Research and Tenure Track Faculty at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Don’t forget the information presented in every episode of our podcast is for general educational purposes only.
Your use of this audio program is subject to the FAMEcast Terms of Use Agreement, which you can find at famecast.org. So, let’s take a quick break. We’ll get our experts settled into the studio, and then we will be back to decipher the alphabet soup of grant funding. It’s coming up right after this.
[Music]
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Dr. Cynthia Gerhardt is a Psychologist and Chief Clinical Research Officer for the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. She’s also a Professor of Pediatrics and Psychology at The Ohio State University.
Dr. Darren Mays is a Professor of Internal Medicine at Ohio State and serves as Assistant Dean for Research and Tenure Track Faculty at The OSU College of Medicine. Both have a passion for helping junior investigators learn the ins and outs of funding their research. That is what we are here to talk about, deciphering the alphabet soup of grant funding.
Before we jump into our topic, let’s take a pause and offer a warm FAMEcast welcome to our guests, Dr. Cynthia Gerhardt and Dr. Darren Mays. Thank you both so much for joining us today.
[Dr Cynthia Gerhardt]
Thank you, Dr. Mike. Happy to be here.
[Dr Darren Mays]
Yes, thank you. I’m happy to be here as well.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, and we are excited to talk about this because it’s an important topic, but it can also be a really confusing one, especially as junior faculty sort of transition from their training into, you know, taking care of patients, teaching, and also being involved in academic research. So, Cynthia, why is it important for faculty to learn about grants really right out of the gate?
[Dr Cynthia Gerhardt]
Well, Dr. Mike, I think you said it well. It certainly is part of our tripartite mission. Research is such an important part of generating new knowledge, but also really fuels innovation in our practice and can be such an important part of improving the delivery of care, you know, education, public health, and so many other things.
So, if you have a great research question, it’s really wonderful to be able to seek out funding to support that so you can test those ideas and begin to think about how you put those into practice. And grants can provide a really important resource for funding staff, supplies, honoraria for your participants in studies, but also it can also pay for your salary support and protect your time to be able to do that work.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, so very important. Where do you start looking? So, let’s say you do have a research question, and you’ve never done this before, and you want to apply for your first grant.
Where do you start?
[Dr Cynthia Gerhardt]
That’s a really great question. So, oftentimes, funding agencies will publish some of their opportunities on website. Faculty can learn about these opportunities through connections with others at the university, but also by searching some of these websites for the primary funding agencies like the National Institute of Health, the Center for Disease Control.
OSU also has a great resource on their website called SPIN, where you can learn about a variety of federal and foundation grant opportunities, and you can even sign up to receive regular emails from some of these funding announcements. In addition, some of those federal agencies may have a list on their website of different funding opportunities that you can learn about, and they issue what’s called a program announcement or a request for application or other funding announcements that PIs can review and kind of see if they align what there were so that they can apply to those.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
We’re going to have a link to that SPIN database at Ohio State for folks in the show notes of this episode over at famecast.org, and we’ll have links to the NIH and the National Science Foundation, CDC, all those things so folks can find it easily. Darren, I wanted to explore a little bit more detail about the main federal funding agencies for health-related research. We’ve mentioned some of them, but what does that landscape look like in terms of availability?
[Dr Darren Mays]
Sure, yeah, that’s a great question. I mean, I think in my experience, the main two federal funding agencies that our investigators apply for research funding are the NIH and the National Science Foundation, as you mentioned. There are lots of others, though.
I think that’s an important thing to emphasize, just depending on the nature of one’s science and how that aligns with the agency’s focus and priorities. So, the CDC, or Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. There’s a long list, but I think the primary two that our faculty and trainees apply for funding from is the NIH and the NSF.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
And then this money comes from taxpayers, and then the federal government is the ones that make decisions based on the applications, correct?
[Dr Darren Mays]
That’s correct. There’s a peer review process that obviously informs the decision-making, but ultimately, it’s the federal agencies that develop the budgets and set priorities for research funding that align with their mission.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
And then when you’re applying for a grant, is it just a matter of going to the website and making an account and logging in and doing an online application? Or am I simplifying it way too much? It sounds like, because I have not applied for a grant before.
I’ve not had the need or opportunity to do so. But I have visions of it being sort of a really drawn-out, long, arduous process. Am I wrong about that?
[Dr Darren Mays]
It can be a process, especially for federal funding. And so, in that space, for example, the investigators are the ones who prepare the science of the application. But if you’re applying for an NIH grant, you as the investigator don’t actually submit the grant typically.
It routes through a process where we have, for example, our Office of Sponsored Programs has signing officials. And the signing officials are the ones who ultimately review the grant application package and click that button to submit to the NIH. There are some foundations, Mike, that are more along the lines of what you were describing, where as an investigator, I click that button to submit.
But typically, with federal funding, it goes through an institutional signing official who ultimately submits the grant application to the agency.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
And the reason for that is to keep research on the up and up and to make sure that at your own institution or institutions where the research is taking place, that there has been safety and ethical approval of what you’re doing at your institution’s level. And so, I guess having institutional official be the one to sign just sort of guarantees that it really has been vetted and that this is an appropriate study. Otherwise, you may have rogue researchers submitting things that may not be so great.
So, let’s talk about the NIH in particular. It seems kind of like a black box. You know, we hear the National Institutes of Health, but it’s really underneath the cover.
It’s really quite complex on the inside. Tell us a little bit more about the structure of the National Institutes of Health.
[Dr Darren Mays]
So, the NIH, as you described, it’s actually a very large organization from a federal agency standpoint. So, the NIH comprises 27 institutes and centers, plus other offices like the Office of the Director. Those institutes and centers typically focus on a specific disease area or disease areas.
So, examples are the National Cancer Institute, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. And those institutes and centers, as we talked about a little bit, have their own budget and set funding priorities. Each one may have different funding lines or mechanisms that they use to support research.
And some research ideas in an investigator may have a line with a single institute or center. So, cancer, for example, falls in the National Cancer Institute, whereas others might have alignment with multiple institutes and centers. So, you can either apply to one or the other or both.
So, it’s important to talk with program staff at a place like the NIH and other funding agencies ahead of time just to make sure your idea where it aligns with funding priorities and which institute and center or organization it aligns with best.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
And those all have their own individual application process? All of those little centers within the big bubble? Or do you just go to one place and then they route it where it needs to go?
And the reason I ask is because you may have relationships with individuals in that center, but it still has to pass some overarching thing first. And again, please forgive me for my ignorance on this because, again, it is very foreign to me. And I’m sure to many in our audience as well.
[Dr Cynthia Gerhardt]
That’s right. I think it is a complicated system to navigate. Generally, you may have some conversations up front with program officers who are at each of the individual institutes that might align with your research project.
And you want to kind of find the best one, as Darren had mentioned. The application itself will go through a Center for Scientific Review, and then it kind of gets assigned to a study section, an institute. And when you apply, you can oftentimes request a study section or institute that you would prefer to have fund your project.
But those decisions get made kind of more centrally initially.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. And then there are different kinds of grants. So not only are there different places from which you can apply to get funding, but there’s actually different types that some things are going to be more appropriate for than others.
It might be depending on what stage of research you’re in. How do you know which grant type? Well, first, what are the grant types?
And how do you know which one is right for you to apply to? Because I feel like if you apply to the wrong one, it’s kind of like standing in the wrong line at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. And like, oh, you got to get over in this line.
And next thing you know, six months have gone by. So how do you what are the types and how do you know which one to go for?
[Dr Cynthia Gerhardt]
Sure. That’s, again, a great question. Most federal agencies and even foundations will have different grant mechanisms.
So, the size of the budget you’re allowed, or the length of time may vary greatly across those different grant mechanisms. And it really is trying to find the best fit for where your research is at that time. You may be just trying to do a pilot study.
So, you don’t need a lot of money to do that initial work. Or you may be wanting to do a full-scale clinical trial, for example. And you do need a larger grant.
So, each of the websites usually for those organizations or foundations will have some information about the kinds of grant mechanisms that they offer. And then you can, again, talk to someone at that agency or that foundation that can help you find the best fit for where your project is. There also may be certain types of training grants, for example.
So, depending on where you are in your career, you may be more likely or eligible for certain types of grants if you’re a graduate student, a postdoc, a career faculty member, for example. Because they really want to encourage more individuals to enter into research. And so, if you’re an early-stage investigator, for example, or you’ve never had an NIH grant, you may actually be eligible for certain types of funding.
Or some institutes may actually have a lower pay line to encourage you to get your initial research program started.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Kind of like a first-time homebuyer’s program.
[Dr Cynthia Gerhardt]
Yeah, exactly.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
But for research projects.
[Dr Cynthia Gerhardt]
Something like that. There are some benefits.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
We’re calling this episode the Alphabet Soup of Grant Funding. And that’s because a lot of these awards do have letters in their names. Can we run through some of the more common ones, like the R03 and R21s I’ve heard of?
What exactly are those?
[Dr Cynthia Gerhardt]
So, yeah, so NIH in particular has several different grant mechanisms that have letters in front of them. More common, like small grants are R03s, which are usually like $50,000 for a year or two. R21s have a little bit more funding.
Oftentimes, these are for, you know, very small projects, but may have a little risk and big impact potentially. Most PIs are probably, or principal investigators, are familiar with the typical R01 mechanism, which is a research project grant that provides up to five years of funding, and usually a maximum of about a half a million dollars a year to fund your project. K awards are a career development award.
That is another common grant mechanism. And they’re specifically designed to kind of help early coder faculty or fellows obtain both career development, but also an opportunity to apply those skills to a research project that they have in mind. And what’s nice about those career development awards is they will cover about 75-80% of your salary to really protect you during your early stage to get your research program off the ground.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Because you may not have access to those bigger funds until you’ve sort of established yourself and have shown that you’re actually going to be able to produce some information from what you’re doing. And so that just helps, you know, if you’re an early researcher and you’re not necessarily getting the big awards yet, then those K awards can help supplement your salary while you are in that process of building your portfolio, so to speak.
[Dr Cynthia Gerhardt]
Exactly. You want to be able to build the evidence base for your big research question. And so sometimes you need to get some pilot funding or some smaller grants to do that.
And then you also want to show a track record that you can be successful at this. And reviewers definitely pay attention to that and take into account your ability to do the projects successfully. So, it’s really important to kind of talk with both mentors and others who have applied for these types of grants, but also to connect with folks at the foundation or funding agencies to determine the right mechanism for you.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
So, if you’re a young faculty member and involved in a large research group, it’s probably a good idea to get involved in the funding part of it right in the beginning so that you have some experience with this. Because like anything, the more you do it, you know, the easier and the better that it starts to get. So, I would think that that would be a good piece of advice just to, you know, it would be easy to say, well, I’ll let so-and-so deal with the application and all of that.
And I’m just, you know, a smaller member of the team. But you really do want to get, you know, yourself, you know, in front of how this process happens pretty early on, I would think, especially if you’re on a research track.
[Dr Cynthia Gerhardt]
Yeah. And the great thing, Mike, is that there are lots of opportunities, both education on the NIH website, for example, that teaches you about how to apply for a grant and all the pieces of it. But also at the institution level, like at the university and the medical centers, we have lots of grant writing forces and support for investigators who are writing their first grant.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
So, the R01, those are the big awards when we hear of a large sum of money going toward a research project. And then the R03s are less money, but the R21s are a little bit more money. So, they actually don’t follow any convention with the numbers.
See, they’re trying to confuse you on purpose. Yes, that’s right.
[Dr Cynthia Gerhardt]
For numbers, I don’t know where the numbers came from. I’m not sure. Darren, do you know?
[Dr Mike Patrick]
No idea.
[Dr Darren Mays]
No.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
And then the K awards have numbers too. K01, K08, K23. But probably the best thing is to go and explore and see what’s out there.
And again, we’ll have links in the show notes, so folks can do that pretty easily.
[Dr Cynthia Gerhardt]
We’ll call this the ABCs and 123s.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yes, that’s right. Darren, so then what does it look like to actually submit that application? Like what kind of information are they looking for?
[Dr Darren Mays]
Yeah, so that’s a great question. I mean, a kind of typical NIH grant application, whether it’s a R01, R03, R21, you have core pieces of the science, things like the abstract, the specific aims, and the research strategy. Those are the things that the investigator, I would say, spends the most time on, especially that specific aims page, for example.
That’s kind of your sales pitch, if you will, to reviewers. But then there’s other administrative components. So, you have to develop a budget for all of them and a budget justification.
If it’s a human subject study, there are human subjects aspects and other pieces that go into the administrative materials. And an R01, once you’re done with that application, some of them can be, I don’t want this to sound daunting, but with all of the attachments and everything else, up to 200 pages, because you have references, you have all those human subjects things, and then the science itself.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
And I would imagine that this is a long process. You know, from the time that you first apply to when you get a decision, what kind of timeframe are you looking at?
[Dr Darren Mays]
Yeah, I joke often, especially with trainees, that it’s kind of like a gestation period, because you submit your grant, and then typically it’s about eight to nine months from the time you submit that grant to getting some kind of funding decision. So, you submit it, it goes through what’s called the receipt and referral process that we talked about a little bit where it’s received by NIH, and they assign it to an institute or center or multiple. They assign it to a study section or a special emphasis panel.
Those are the peer review groups that review it and give feedback. That peer review process generally is four or five months after you submit it. And then you get your score and your feedback, and it winds its way through for competitively scored applications, the funding council review process.
So, you get through all of that, and it’s about nine months later, and you get an answer on funding. Oftentimes we have to then go back and revise it and submit it again. So, it can be a lengthy process, but it’s worth the energy and effort and wait when you get that first notice of award on a grant and get to actually put it into action.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. I would imagine then that you’re juggling multiple projects, because certainly you’re not just sitting, you know, twiddling your thumbs while you’re waiting for an answer. So, there’s a lot of multitasking that’s involved in being a researcher, correct?
[Dr Darren Mays]
Absolutely, I would say. We submit our grants, and then we’re shifting gears and working on, you know, it might be abstracts or papers in that time or running additional experiments to collect more data. So, it’s kind of a never-ending cycle, I would say, from that perspective.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
And then your institutional review board, so the IRB, is that done after you’ve gotten permission to, you know, to get funded for it?
[Dr Cynthia Gerhardt]
I think that’s a great question. So usually you have to have, if it’s a human-subjects research study that involves human subjects, you have to have the institutional review board at your institution approve it before you can get the notice of award. Some folks are doing animal studies, so those may have to go through a separate process of being reviewed through what we call IACUC.
But it varies at institutions, but usually you have to have that approval from your institution before they will offer the notice of award.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
So, you could do it sort of in parallel where you’re going through the IRB and then you’re also submitting for the funding, but you’re not going to get the award until your IRB has approved it.
[Dr Cynthia Gerhardt]
Yes.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Okay. So, what then, once you get the award, so how does that work then? Do they just send you a check?
How does the whole funding thing and managing the money of it, how does that work?
[Dr Cynthia Gerhardt]
Well, the first thing you do when you find out you’re getting funded is that, you know, I do a happy dance and you celebrate, right? It’s a huge accomplishment. It’s so much fun to tell everyone when you get that good news.
So, you will get issued a notice of award or an NOA from the NIH in particular or another agency may send you a letter to say congratulations and they will let your institution know, because this is usually funneled obviously through your institution. So, we don’t get the paycheck. We, our institution gets the opportunity to, you know, help you set up a budget and an account that you can begin to draw from to be able to pay for your research study.
So, all of that gets happens internally after you get the notice of award and then you can actually do the budget. And so, once your grant account or your budget gets activated, you can start the project. You will usually have to submit an annual progress report or what NIH calls an RPPR.
And that just tells them that you’ve been meeting your milestones and what you’ve done for the grant is what you sent you to do. And then they will issue a new notice of award for the next year. So, your institution knows that your funding will continue.
And then at the end of the grant, usually you have to do a final report a few months after you close out the project and let them know all that you’ve accomplished. So big county background work happens with the institution if there’s any funds to return or everything you needed to them to kind of check off all the boxes. And then the investigator obviously has to do the work of, you know, buying the supplies and hiring the folks to help do the project and all of that.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
So, you know, some folks are hired to be primary researchers and others kind of in their academic career become researchers. So, let’s say that this is not something that I have a lot of experience with during my training. And maybe, you know, I’m on the clinical educators track, but I’ve delved into research a little bit, maybe especially clinical research.
How do you really get started if this is something that you’re interested in? So, Darren, who do you talk to about starting this whole thing?
[Dr Darren Mays]
Yeah, that’s a great question, because I think it’s a very difficult thing to try to navigate on your own. I would say two things. One, mentors or leaders in your department, division, research center, really leaning on people around you who have experience with this grants process and can help even just navigate it.
I mean, they can, you know, these are people who can give you feedback on science, but also just understand like, you know, the steps, there are steps at your own institution that you have to work through and timelines and things like that. And then there’s the whole federal machinery to navigate as well, if that’s the type of grant you’re applying for. So, I do think it is, it’s something in my experience that the more you do it, you know, you develop that knowledge, you develop that understanding.
But when you get started, just lean into the people around you who have done it already to get guidance and advice. Second, as we’ve talked about in response to a couple of topics, I remember when I was first starting, like the idea of emailing a program officer at the NIH. It’s like, I can do that.
Like that’s, it seems really intimidating, but there are scientists just like us. And they love to talk to people about ideas. And they are also some of the best people to give guidance on like, you know, you should consider this funding opportunity announcement or this funding opportunity announcement and kind of point you in the right direction, especially at an early stage from a career standpoint, to understand, you know, where your ideas best align with funding opportunities and scientific priorities.
Yeah.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. Cynthia, how do you go about finding a mentor?
[Dr Cynthia Gerhardt]
Oh, my goodness. Well, I think Darren mentioned like looking for people who have been successful around you, you know, often people who may have content knowledge. You know, mentors are, I think, a really valuable resource, particularly bringing your faculty or trainees.
And I am in the habit of collecting mentors over the course of my career. I don’t know about Darren, but I hang on to those mentors. They can be very valuable in helping you navigate some of the specifics of the grant funding process of just kind of building your scientific career.
But I’ve also collected mentors to help me in other ways, like with my clinical care or teaching or my leadership development. So, you may have mentors who serve different capacities. In addition to kind of specific or named members that you may have on your grants, particularly if you’re doing a career development award.
But I find if anyone is willing to give of their time, and time is our most precious gift, if anybody is willing to give you their time, cherish that, take it, you know, hang on to that person because they are priceless.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And when you do find those mentors and they have given your time, their time, then you do need to pay it back the other way and be willing to be a mentor, even when you’re busy, just to, you know, take a junior faculty member under your wing and help them out, because most likely someone helped you as well.
We’ve talked a lot about federal funding. What are some alternatives to federal funding, Cynthia?
[Dr Cynthia Gerhardt]
Oh, gosh. Well, I think, you know, we talked about SPIN or looking at other foundations. And oftentimes when you’re early in your career, foundations can be a good way to start a track record of funding.
And oftentimes they may be smaller pots of money that can fund your pilot awards, and they may be less complicated to apply for, as Darren had mentioned, than some of the more federal, common federal mechanisms. So, applying for those types of foundation awards can be really great. Sometimes their funding lines are a little bit better.
And many institutions also have like development or philanthropy departments that can also help direct research funds to support particular projects.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
So, when we’re looking at foundational funding that’s not federal controlled, are those available in that SPIN database as well? So, like if you go to SPIN, you can find all the things that are available federal, but also foundational?
[Dr Cynthia Gerhardt]
Yes, there are a number of foundations that are there.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Darren, then what are some of the common pitfalls that new investigators face? Like what should they be on the lookout for? Where are you most likely to trip up in the process?
[Dr Darren Mays]
Two things come to mind for me, and there are probably more. But the first one is, and I can tell you how I made this mistake, not seeking feedback on the science. Like I think it’s critically important to get as many eyes on your science as possible before you submit it.
So, I early in my career submitted a K award. First application was not discussed, which are the words you don’t want to hear when you submit an NIH grant. And I remember sharing the summary statement, so the peer reviewer feedback with others in the research group I was part of.
There was a very experienced person who said this could have been avoided and pointed out all the things that reviewers raised if I had had other people read it. And then the next time I resubmitted it, I had her read it, plus many others, and it got funded on the second try. So sometimes you do have to learn from the bumps and bruises you take along the way.
But getting feedback, I learned that very early on. I don’t think you can preach that enough for early-stage investigators. And then the second thing that comes to mind to me is underestimating the amount of time that is needed.
You really need to square away time, especially to work on the science. But then you work on your science, and then you have to do all those administrative attachments. It’s hard to put a number on, but I was looking around in the literature a little bit and saw estimates of 200 hours within the three months before the application is due, which is 40-50% of your time in that stretch.
It really does take a lot of energy and effort to write a grant and to prepare all the pieces. And I think budgeting for that time is really important.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
And before you have awards as a junior investigator, you likely have a clinical responsibility. And so, there’s so much time involved in this that it really is impossible to do a full load clinical.
[Dr Darren Mays]
I think so, yeah, it’s really critical. I think it’s critical across the career trajectory, but especially early on when you’re learning this process, learning how to write grants, learning how to submit them, that takes even more time. And having that protected time is really important.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
In terms of support from the Ohio State University College of Medicine, the Wexner Medical Center, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, I would imagine, since you’ve wanted to come on the program to talk about grant funding, that this is something that is important at our institutions and that we are provided lots of support, I would hope. Correct?
[Dr Cynthia Gerhardt]
That’s true. I will say I’m involved with the Clinical Translational Science Institute at OSU, and it provides infrastructure to support research across the two institutions, both Nationwide Children’s and OSU. And we have so many wonderful resources there in terms of grant writing opportunities, but I also know the institutions have other departments that provide those kinds of resources as well.
So, there are many opportunities both within the institution, but also, like you said, within the NIH website or other places.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
In terms of a key takeaway, folks who are interested in doing research, I would think that the most important thing is to find someone in your division who has done this before and can help guide you on the pieces, parts, because I think this is the sort of thing that if you just, you know, you can’t watch just a YouTube video and figure out how to do it.
[Dr Cynthia Gerhardt]
Yeah, and I would say to emphasize, you know, nowadays we do team science. There’s not really an investigator that works by themselves anymore and that are a little silo. Most of the work we do is interdisciplinary, so you may have lots of collaborators.
You may be the principal investigator of the grant, but you will have other co-investigators or even multi-principal investigators involved in the project that will help advise your work.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Well, I want to thank both of you so much for stopping by today. We have Dr. Cynthia Gerhardt and Dr. Darren Mays. We are going to have lots of links in the show notes for you over at famecast.org.
So, I had mentioned the SPIN funding database. You can search that, and we’ll have a link to that in the show notes. Also links to the National Institutes of Health, the NIH Activity Codes, which I don’t think we mentioned those.
What are NIH Activity Codes, Darren?
[Dr Darren Mays]
Oh, that’s like R01, R03. Those are referred to as Activity Codes, the alphabet soup part.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Okay, so there are people rolling their eyes at me right now. And then there’s other people like, I didn’t know what NIH Activity Codes were either. So, if you want to learn more about all the R’s and the K’s and those things, you can look them up at the NIH Activity Codes link, which we’ll have in the show notes.
We also have a link to the U.S. National Science Foundation, CDC grant funding, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and then that YouTube video navigating the NIH’s alphabet soup of federal funding. We’ll have a link to that video in the show notes as well. So once again, Dr. Cynthia Gerhardt and Dr. Darren Mays, both with the Ohio State University College of Medicine. Thank you so much for stopping by today.
[Dr Cynthia Gerhardt]
Thank you so much, Dr. Mike. Appreciate it.
[Dr Darren Mays]
Yes, thanks, Mike. Really appreciate it.
[Music]
[Dr Mike Patrick]
We are back with just enough time to say thanks once again, to all of you for taking time out of your day and making FAMEcast a part of it. We really do appreciate your support. And thanks again to our guests this week.
Dr. Cynthia Gerhardt, Chief Clinical Research Officer at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, and Dr. Darren Mays, Assistant Dean for Research and Tenure Track Faculty at the Ohio State University College of Medicine. Also, thanks again to our co-sponsor this week, Widening Impact in Medicine and Science, also known as WIMS, at the Ohio State University College of Medicine. Don’t forget, you can find FAMEcast wherever podcasts are found.
We’re in the Apple Podcast app, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Audible, and most other podcast apps for iOS and Android. Our landing site is Famecast.org. You’ll find our entire archive of past programs there, along with show notes for each of the episodes, our terms of use agreement, and that handy contact page if you would like to suggest a future topic for the program.
Reviews are helpful wherever you get your podcasts. We always appreciate when you share your thoughts about the show. And we do have some additional resources that you can find on our website.
If you head over to Famecast.org and click on the Resources tab up there at the top of the page, we have two links to faculty development modules on Scarlet Canvas. One is called Advancing Your Clinical Teaching. Again, that’s a whole set of modules.
And then another set is called FD4Me, or Faculty Development for Medical Educators. And there are scores of learning modules on Scarlet Canvas. So be sure to follow those links to find more useful information specifically targeting academic medical faculty.
Thanks again for stopping by. And until next time, this is Dr. Mike saying, stay focused, stay balanced, and keep reaching for the stars. So long, everybody.
[Music]
