Deciding which grant to choose for your first submission

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Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills

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to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.

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As clinicians, we spend a decade or more as trainees learning to take care of patients.

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When we finally start our careers, we want to build research programs, but then we find

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that our years of clinical training did not adequately prepare us to lead our research

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program.

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Through no fault of our own, we struggle to find mentors, and when we can't, we quit.

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However, clinicians hold the keys to the greatest research breakthroughs.

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For this reason, the Clinician Researcher podcast exists to give academic clinicians

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the tools to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.

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Now introducing your host, Toyosi Onwuemene.

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Welcome to today's episode of the Clinician Researcher podcast.

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It is such a pleasure to be talking with you today.

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Thank you for listening.

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I'm Toyosi Onwuemene, and I'm talking to you today about how to decide which grant you're

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going to submit first.

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This came up recently, I was leading a session at a table at a meeting where I was giving

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people tips on how to write grants.

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And so at my table, it's one of the questions that came up.

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It's like, I'm a fellow, and I'm just starting, and there are all these grant opportunities,

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and which do I pick?

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Am I trying to submit a grant first of all to NIH?

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Am I doing a career development award first?

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Where do I start?

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And that's such a great question.

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And it led me back to when I first started writing grants, and the only criteria I picked

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for writing the grant was, oh, wow, they're going to pay for me to do my third year of

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med school, and I won't have to take out a loan for that year.

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Oh my goodness, of course I'll sign up and write this grant.

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And so the first grant I wrote was about, I think, a $50,000 plus grant that was going

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to cover my third year of research.

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I didn't get it, but that was the first grant that I wrote.

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And I didn't actually really think very carefully about, oh, should I submit this grant first

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versus this other grant first?

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I didn't think that carefully.

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But anyway, it's a great question, and I want to answer it on today's episode.

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And I'm going to talk to you about five ways to decide which grant to submit first when

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you've never submitted a grant.

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And I do want to say that there is never a time in your life where you're too old to

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submit a grant.

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So there's not like, well, I've been a clinician for the last 20 years of my life.

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I've never done research, therefore I can never do it again.

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And I just want to pause and say, you're a clinician.

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The fact that you can say that is a testament to the fact that you can do the impossible.

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I don't know many people who can maintain the kind of hours you maintain to succeed

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through residency or do the kinds of things that you did to be where you are today.

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So you've clearly shown yourself as a person who can do anything.

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The moment you have a clear understanding of where you're going, what you're doing,

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you can do it.

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I know because the phenotype of a clinician is very, very, very clear.

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It's a pretty strong phenotype.

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So there's never a time when it's too late for you because you're good at learning.

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You're good at learning.

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You're the kind of person who can apply your knowledge building skills to learn skills

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really, really quickly.

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So whenever you want to start submitting grants, you can do that.

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There's never a time when you're too old.

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There's also never a time when you're too young.

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The moment you're thinking, should I submit a grant?

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There you go.

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You're ready to submit a grant.

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And the reason it's important to think about it is just because submitting a grant is just

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getting money, right?

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In every other area of our life, we fully understand what money can do.

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Oh, we know what money can do.

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And grant money is like that.

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What does the grant money you're applying for help you do?

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The grant money is just about doing.

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And yeah, at the end of the day, many people are using grant money as a way to measure

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effectiveness or a way to promote people or a way to advance people.

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The real purpose of applying for grant funding is not that people get to celebrate you at

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the end of it.

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I mean, they will, or at least I hope you celebrate yourself, but just that you're asking

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for money to do something.

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And someone says, I align with what you're working on.

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And you're like, oh, we align.

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Let's see if you can fund my project.

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And so grant money is really about helping you accomplish things.

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And so hopefully you have something you want to accomplish.

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You're not just like, can I just have money?

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Can I just have money just to have money?

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You have a plan for the money.

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And so how do you decide which grant to submit first when you've never submitted a grant?

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Number one, pick one.

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That's my first advice.

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Don't think too hard.

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Especially if you've never done this before, don't think too hard.

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This is not like, oh, what's the perfect first grant?

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I want to just promise you, if you've not been a clinician researcher for too long,

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if you've not done much in your research role, you're going to be submitting a lot of grants.

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You just are.

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And so ultimately, you know, the grand scheme of things, which was the very first grant

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I submitted, is not as important as just the fact that you just need to get started.

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And why do you need to get started?

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Because you know, it's a skill.

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It's a skill.

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And like any skill, you've got to build it.

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And if you've never built the skill before, if you haven't had someone mentor you to build

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the skill, then it's going to take you time to build it.

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And it's okay.

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You're the kind of person who can build skills well.

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But you're going to have to build the skill.

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So start.

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Just start.

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And for many of us who've never done this before, the first grant is not your best grant.

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And that's okay.

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It's the way skill building works.

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You know, you start out, you're not so great, you get better over time.

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And so most people don't get the first grant that they submit.

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Most people don't.

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But it is such a great experience because it teaches you things you don't know.

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And it helps you grow and build a skill that you haven't had before.

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And the more you are able to do this thing, the more skill you build over time, especially

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with effective feedback and applying that feedback over time.

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So just start somewhere.

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You start somewhere because starting somewhere allows you to just go on this journey of building

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this amazing skill of putting your ideas into a cohesive and coherent format, putting it

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on paper, at least in a document that somebody else can read.

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And then at the end, you assess whether they got your meaning and whether you were able

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to pass on your vision and your passion effectively enough and in a great format enough that they

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accepted your proposal and decided to fund your grant.

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So just start.

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Don't let analysis paralysis consume you.

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Just start.

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Okay.

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The second thing to do is start with an institutional opportunity.

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In general, these tend to be the lowest hanging fruit.

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Just start with something that's already available.

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Your institution says, we're going to fund researchers to do XYZ, or we have a little

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pot of money for researchers to do this.

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Usually when you start where you are, it's the least amount of competition usually.

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And there is just so many more opportunities that are around you.

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So if you are at an academic medical center where research is prioritized, then there's

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usually a pot of money and different call for proposals that go out.

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So you definitely want to take advantage of those and apply for the things that are immediately

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around you.

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And now many times people will say, well, apply for the KL2 or apply for the big career

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development K-12 or some other career development award that's available within the institution.

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And I would recommend that you do that, especially if you're starting out as early career faculty.

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But before you do the bigger grant, what are some smaller opportunities that you have opportunity

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to practice the skill building and take advantage of those opportunities first?

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Or do them simultaneously so you're going for the KL2?

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Great.

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But also while you're doing that, what are the other small opportunities you can apply

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for?

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OK.

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Number three is to find a foundation grant.

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So the thing about foundations, they vary in terms of what they fund, how much they

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fund, whether they give overhead, which we also call F&A costs.

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They vary.

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And what's most important about foundations is that they're very different from the government

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in the way they think about funding grants.

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And usually the barrier is not as high.

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And I say that carefully because actually I would say that there are some foundations

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that have a very, very, very high barrier for entry.

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And then there are some that don't have as much of a high barrier or maybe are new to

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the funding space.

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But what they're really interested in is who is aligning with our priorities?

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And honestly, at the end of the day, with every grant opportunity that you are applying

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for, it really is a question of is there alignment between your priority and the funder's priorities?

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So that does need to be aligned.

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But foundations in general have a lot more opportunities.

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And their applications don't usually involve as much compared to, say, like an NIH grant

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or some of the bigger government agencies as far as grant funding.

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So maybe start with the foundation grants because in general those tend to be less intense,

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relatively speaking.

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Some foundations, again, are pretty intense.

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But for the most part, you can find many foundation grant opportunities where there's not as much

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intensiveness.

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Okay.

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And then number four is find a grant that meets your needs.

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And to be able to find a grant that meets your needs, you've got to be able to define

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what those needs are.

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Like, what do you actually need?

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What do you need money to do?

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And sometimes I find people say, well, I'm told I need to submit grants.

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I'm going to submit grants.

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And it's interesting when I hear that because it's like, well, you've got to be very clear

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about what you want the money to do for you because that is the case you have to make

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in your proposal.

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And sometimes I have people say, well, I just want to be able to do research without any

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funding.

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And I say, you can't do research without any funding, but you're probably not going to

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be able to do very much.

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And your research may not go very far because, hey, it takes money to do anything.

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You know that.

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And if it takes money to do anything in the real world, in the academic world, it's the

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same thing.

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And if you want someone to move your research project forward while you're in the clinic

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seeing patients, then it does cost money for them to do that.

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And maybe you have access to that and you're not paying for it directly, but somebody is.

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And what grant money allows you to do is to fund the team that does your work.

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It does also allow you to fund yourself.

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And that's something that a lot of clinicians sometimes get upset about.

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It's like, why do I have to fund myself?

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And I always remind them, like, as long as you have a job, you're figuring out a way

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to fund yourself because if you could not be profitable as a physician to the system,

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you may not have a job for very long.

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And so in general, being able to fund yourself is an important piece of the whole process.

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So what do you need?

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Do you need your time funded?

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You need a team funded?

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What do you need exactly?

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The funding agency is also important in the decision because if the funding agency is

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just giving $50,000, it doesn't matter that you need a million.

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This is what they're giving out.

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And so then you tailor your need to the amount of funding available, right?

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You kind of narrow your scope so that you can fit what you're trying to do.

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You just take a piece of your project and you narrow your scope to fit within the budget

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limits.

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OK.

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And then number five is to work your way up to a bigger grant.

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In general, especially if you haven't had much by way of research training and by way

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of like research proposal writing training, you are first of all really using your first

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few submission opportunities to get good at grant writing.

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And that doesn't mean you're not going for the grant.

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Like you're not like writing with the view of like, well, this is good practice.

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I mean it is, but you should go for it so that your goal is to try to get the grant

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funded.

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But do you know that it does take time to figure out the components?

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When I wrote my first grant, I thought I could pull the all-nighter and get the grant submitted.

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To be honest, if you're going to submit an effective grant, you can't pull it off in

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24 hours.

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Maybe if you've been doing it for a long time, you can finally do it, but it's very hard.

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And so many times the first grant submission is the wake up call.

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It's like the what?

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They need me to get how many signatures?

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Oh, it's not just my mentor that's going to sign this.

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Oh.

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So sometimes there's a sticker shock of, oh, these are all the components that go with

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a grant submission and now you know.

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And the next time you're going to have it together before the deadline.

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And so work your way up over time to a bigger grant.

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Okay, so I talked about five things.

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Number one, pick one, don't let analysis paralysis consume you.

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Just start somewhere.

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Number two, think about institutional opportunities because sometimes these are more widely available

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and may not have as much competition to say national or international opportunities.

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Number three, find a foundation grant because many foundations really don't have the same

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kind of intensive applications as government funding agencies can have.

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And then number four, find a grant that meets your needs.

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Make sure that this grant actually has something it can do for you.

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Be clear about what your needs are.

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And then number five, work your way up to a bigger grant.

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Start small, work your way up and definitely work your way up.

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Don't stay small because you've got a lot of work to do and you've got people who've

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got to help you come alongside you and do this work.

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So you can start small, but definitely go big.

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Okay, so those are the five things that I'm recommending in terms of submitting your first

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grant.

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If you want more ideas on how to negotiate your academic career, you should think about

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joining us in Academic Negotiation Academy.

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More information, visit our website, clinicianresearcherpodcast.com.

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It's been a pleasure talking with you today.

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You know one other physician, you know one other clinician who needs to hear this, and

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I'm inviting you to share this with them.

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All right, we'll see you again on the next episode.

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Thanks for listening to this episode of the Clinician Researcher Podcast, where academic

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clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they

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have a mentor.

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If you found the information in this episode to be helpful, don't keep it all to yourself.

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Someone else needs to hear it.

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So take a minute right now and share it.

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As you share this episode, you become part of our mission to help launch a new generation

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of clinician researchers who make transformative discoveries that change the way we do healthcare.