How to write the "Facilities & other resources"

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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 the Clinician Researcher podcast.

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I'm your host, Toyosi Onwuemene, and it is a pleasure to be speaking with you today.

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Now, as I mentioned yesterday, I just got done writing an average-sized grant, and I

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had a couple of collaborators work with me as side investigators, and one of the things

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that came up was the facilities and resources document.

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What I recognize is the document says facilities and other resources, and so it's easy to think

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about your office space and the computers you have access to, but it really is so much

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bigger than that.

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I want to take some time to talk about the facilities and resources document, because

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I think it's not a document that we are used to writing except in the context of grants,

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and I want to just share with some insights about how to write that document.

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Okay.

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So, the first thing that I want to just draw attention to is that, especially when it comes

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to NIH grants, your scientific environment is part of your application.

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In a sense, they are asking the question, well, how will you be successful in this work?

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Does your environment give you access to what is needed to succeed?

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So we get that you are brilliant scientists, and we get that you have partners who are

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amazing, and between the three of you, or however many of you are in co-investigators

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on the grant, you're going to be able to do this excellently.

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However, will your institution support you to do this work?

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And it's such an important question, and it's one of the reasons why it is one of the components

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that can make or break a grant, right, because you can score well everywhere across the board,

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but when it comes to the environment, then people say, oh, no, not a great environment,

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because they're not sure that you're going to be a resource to do the work well.

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They're not even sure if you're supported to do the work well.

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Here's the deal, especially when you're submitting for NIH awards, but to be honest, really all

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proposals is that the proposal is really submitted by the institution, not by you.

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It's submitted by the institution, because the institution is the one guaranteeing this

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work is going to be done.

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For that reason, institutions do get to say, hey, we're not going to submit this grant,

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because it doesn't meet our institutional standards.

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And so you have to be aware of that, that even though you are the investigator who is

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doing the bulk of the work, your institution is actually responsible for the submission

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of the grant.

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You, when you submit it, are submitting it as their agent.

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And then when the money comes, the money doesn't come to you as an individual, it comes to

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your institution.

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And they give you some of it according to the budget that you have decided, and depending

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on what the funding agency is, they keep back some for themselves so that they can continue

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to support you in an amazing environment that allows you to do this great work.

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Okay, for this reason, when you are submitting a grant and you're thinking about describing

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the facilities and resources, it's not just the facilities and resources that are immediately

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available to you within the enclosed space of your division.

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It really is about the facilities and resources available throughout the institution that

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you can leverage to do your work well.

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It's about the facilities and resources available to you throughout your institution that you

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can leverage to do your work well.

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For this reason, you're going to want a lot of pages.

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If you are going to do this work justice, you're going to need a lot of pages to put

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it together.

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And so what are the components of the facilities and other resources?

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Okay, let's talk about it.

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So one of the things that's really important when you first set out to write the facilities

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and other resources document is to actually go back and look at the instructions.

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And this is really a theme in terms of writing any proposal.

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You've really got to go back to the instructions, and one thing that's easy to do is just to

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take somebody else's facilities and other resources document and just use it to create

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your own, especially when you're from the same institution.

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And that's okay, and it's easy enough to do, but you do want to make sure that you are

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up to date on the latest instructions.

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And really, in general, NIH does tend to change their instructions over time.

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Sometimes those changes are small and subtle, sometimes they're major, but over time, there's

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change in the way these documents are presented.

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And so you just want to make sure by looking at the most recent documents that you are

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actually using the guidelines that are relevant to the current submission.

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And so I always recommend going to the document called the SF-424.

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You'll find it on grants.nih.gov, and you have a chance to really look within that document.

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So search for facilities and other resources and find it and find what they say.

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And so what they're asking, and I'm actually reading verbatim now from the instructions

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from the most recent SF-424 as of this recording, is that they want you to describe how the

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scientific environment in which the research will be done contributes to the probability

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of success.

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So describe how the scientific environment in which the research will be done contributes

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to the probability of success.

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So institutional support, physical resources, and intellectual rapport.

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Okay, and in describing the scientific environment in which the work will be done, discuss ways

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in which the proposed studies will benefit from unique features of the scientific environment

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or from unique subject populations or how studies will employ useful collaborative agreements.

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Okay, and if there are multiple performance sites, describe the resources available at

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each site.

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Okay, so I've given you the instructions.

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I've literally read verbatim from the actual instructions.

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So it's three components, right?

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Number one, it's, okay, describe the scientific environment, right?

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Talk about what's the institutional support, what are the physical resources, what's the

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intellectual rapport.

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And if you're an LE stage investigator, they actually are asking for a little bit more.

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They're saying, hey, talk about your resources for class traveler training.

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Talk about the collegial support.

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Talk about logistical support.

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Talk about financial support, such as protected time for research with salary support.

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So there are a couple of things that you can put in there and really, really build this

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document as much as possible.

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Okay.

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So number one, you want to really go and read the instructions and make sure that you understand

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everything that needs to be in there.

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And as I talked about with yesterday's episode, is you do want to get an example of what one

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looks like.

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And it's so helpful.

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This is one of the things, this is one of the documents in which I will say, before

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you ever start writing, you should get somebody's example, because it will save you so much

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time.

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People are putting these documents together all the time.

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Your institution probably has some boilerplate language available at different, available

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in your institutional intranet.

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It's out there.

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So do not, this is the one document you never want to create from scratch.

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You want to borrow heavily from as many other people at your institution who've put documents

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like this together.

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Your mentors will be able to help you with that.

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Okay.

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So the first step is really to understand what's required.

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And then the next step is to borrow from somebody and say, hey, you've put this together before.

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And I see what you've put together.

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And borrow from a couple of people, right?

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You're all at your one institution, but you get to see how they've all described the institutional

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environment that you have.

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And so the two components of this description, you're going to list these facilities, you're

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going to list these resources, but then you're also going to put a little bit of a blurb

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about how you're going to benefit, how this project specifically is going to benefit you,

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how this resource is going to benefit you with regard to this specific project.

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So that's why it's not enough to just simply list pages and pages and pages of all the

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amazing things you have available to you at your institution, but you actually want to

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be able to write a little bit in there as far as how this resource will benefit you.

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And for me, what I do is I write a few lines at the end of each big paragraph of a description

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of a resource, and I'll say, for this project, we're going to use the library to do X, Y,

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Z.

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Yes, the library should be part of your facilities and resources document because, you know,

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so much goodness happens in the library that's relevant to you in your scientific career

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and certainly in your research projects.

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But then you're going to list the resource, list all the wonderful things about it, and

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then you're going to have a line or two for how it will benefit your research team.

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For example, another example is that you're part of the Department of Medicine, for example.

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Okay, this investigator and the co-investigator, they are faculty members in the Department

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of Medicine, those kinds of things.

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So you always want for, and you don't have to do this for every resource you mention,

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but for key resource that are directly relevant to your proposal, you do want to do that.

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And what you do is you give the reviewers a sense of you're not just listing all these

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things, but they actually are relevant to your proposal as well.

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So you want to know the instructions, you want to see what somebody else has put together,

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and then you want to go ahead and make sure that for every category, you are copy, you

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are tailoring it specifically to your research project and why this resource is helping you

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as well.

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Okay, all right.

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Now another thing that you want to do is to actually go through and read the text and

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make sure it makes sense.

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And the reason being that many of these documents are boilerplate documents.

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So for the most part, you can create one yourself from scratch, just going around to institutional

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website and web pages and pretty much copying and pasting a lot of the things they say as

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a starting point.

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But then you really do want to kind of paraphrase and make it more tailored to your work.

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But what you want to do is make sure that you are not just writing out what all of it

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is without actually reading to make sure that it's understandable to your average reader.

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And I will tell you that this is not one of the documents necessarily when you give in

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the grand scheme of your entire document that you want to spend so much time on, but you

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do want to spend enough time on it.

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You want to make sure that your writing is clear.

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Because I think what tends to happen is that people just copy paste stuff off of websites

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and they're not really asking, hey, does it make sense?

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Is this the language we want to use?

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Is this the way in which we want to present the data?

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You want to make sure that you do that.

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And so do spend some time working on it and making sure that the language is accessible

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to the reviewers as well.

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And then another thing that you want to do, and I think this is important in general for

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your entire grant, is to make sure it looks good.

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Make sure it looks nice.

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It's formatted well.

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It's justified edges if you believe in justification for grant applications.

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And if you don't, it's okay.

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But you want to make sure that when you look at it, it looks good.

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Because although it's not necessarily one of the biggest components of the application,

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kind of like the research strategy is, it is a component of the application that allows

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the reviewers to judge your sense of organization.

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So wow, this is an organized team.

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They've really done a great job with the facilities and other resources.

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And it just speaks to the quality of your work in general.

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The quality of your project, of the paper, or the document before them is the only way

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they can really use to judge you as an investigator.

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And should they be judging you?

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I don't know.

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But let's say they're judging your work.

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And really, it's an extension of the work you do.

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And so you want to make sure that it presents you in the best possible light.

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So you definitely want to take time to make sure that not just the content is important,

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not just the format is good, but also making sure that it actually delivers and looks good

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as well.

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Okay, so that's that.

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The other piece that became really relevant to me in the story I shared earlier, the other

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thing that becomes really relevant to me in the story I shared earlier is that you may

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be an investigator who has other sites as part of your collaborative work.

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And you need to present their facilities and resources in addition to your own.

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That would be easier and nice and straightforward as if they would just put theirs together

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and then send it to you.

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But what happens if they do not have it?

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If they've never written one, they're not sure exactly what to put in it.

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What exactly do you do?

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Do you start going to different website links to try to create something from scratch for

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them?

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Only as an absolute last resort.

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What you want to do is you want to ask them to check in with their CTSA if they have one

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or research hub and ask if they have access to documents like this that have been created

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before.

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Again, these are documents that other people are creating all the time.

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You never really want to start this one from scratch on your own.

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And so if that investigator has never done this before, and because you are the one submitting

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the grant and you care how everything comes together, you want to ask them and just point

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them to potential resources that could give them the answer to this question.

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And so is their library able to help them?

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Is there a grants office that may already have compiled this data?

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Is there an intranet site that they just need to link to?

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Okay.

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So what if all that fails and they're like, I'm sorry, this is all I got for you?

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You now want to start to leverage your connections.

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You want to leverage your connections and make sure that you are able to find somebody

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at that institution who maybe has submitted a grant recently.

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So for this particular recent application, that's what I did.

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I reached out to someone I had met in the course of recording this podcast and I said,

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hey, have you submitted a facilities and resources document recently?

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Because I have somebody else who needs to submit one with me and I don't want to start

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from scratch.

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And people are so gracious.

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They're so awesome.

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And you're not asking them to create a new document just for you.

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You're just saying, hey, you probably already have access to this document.

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Would you please share it with me?

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And they are happy to do that.

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And so that was a great starting point for me, was getting all this information already

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from somebody so at least I had a starting template.

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And then I went through their website and I thought about what other resources are going

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to be important to put on this particular in this document.

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And I did that like the CTSA or the clinical information, the university information, those

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kinds of details.

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And so I added them.

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And so eventually this particular investigator, their group was able to create a document

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for me and I actually was able to add to what I already had.

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So I didn't get rid of mine in favor of theirs.

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I just was able to add it to what I'd already pulled together from both the prior investigator

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sending me the document and also what I had been able to glean by myself on the website.

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And some of the stuff I had I liked better compared to some of the stuff that they were

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giving me.

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But at the end of the day, I got all the information I needed and was able to put together the

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facilities and other resources document.

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I think the final thing that I want to share about the facilities and other resources document

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is that you get to make it your own.

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You do.

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You get to really, really tailor it and recognize that you're going to use this again.

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You're going to use this document again.

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So it is worth the first time you write it, putting in a lot of effort into it so that

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it is something that you can use again the next time without thinking too, too, too,

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too critically about doing it.

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So you want to make sure that you really create one that's as amazing as possible the first

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go around.

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Now, invariably, the first time you're submitting a grant, you're just overwhelmed, just trying

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to get it finished.

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And you might not think so hard about putting together the facilities and other resources

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document.

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But when you can, and to the greatest extent that you can, you really do want to spend

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time here.

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Because that's one of the things that I think is so awesome is that you can put, there's

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no page limits.

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Especially when you're submitting for an NIH grant, there are no page limits to the facilities

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and other resources.

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And so you can list everything in there to the greatest extent that you want.

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And what NIH doesn't want you to do is to use pages to circumvent other page limits.

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But what you can do is add a little bit of information in the research strategy about

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this resource, and then have in parenthesis C facilities and other resources so that they

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can know to go there for more detailed information.

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For example, you're making use of a multi-institutional network.

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That's a resource.

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You're going to put that in the facilities and other resources, and you're going to really

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describe it in great detail.

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But when it comes to your actual research strategy, you're going to want to mention

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it, but you're not going to be able to go into that level of detail because of the space

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constraints.

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But what you do is to summarize it on a high level for the way it makes sense in the research

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strategy, and then you're going to put in parenthesis C facilities and other resources

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so that reviewers know to go there to look for more information.

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So the facilities and other resources document is an important component of every grant.

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And sometimes it gets a little bit of bad press because it doesn't seem to be as important.

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Or I should say it gets short-shrifted.

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I think that's the term I have in my mind, short-shrifted, because it does not kind of

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carry the same weight as, say, the research strategy or perhaps the specific aims.

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But it's really a great resource for you to be able to put in all the information that

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couldn't fit in the strategy and to a great detail.

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And it's also an opportunity to really showcase to the reviewers that your team has got it

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together.

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And third, and actually probably the most important reason to pull it together is because

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it shows to the reviewers what kind of institutional environment you are housed in.

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And it helps them feel confident and secure that your great team has a great environment

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in which to do this work.

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And you want to make sure that as you present that, you don't spare any expense.

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You make sure they know about all possible resources that are relevant to you at your

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institution.

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Now, one of the questions that will come up is that, well, why not just put every potential

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resource?

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Like, it doesn't have to count.

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It doesn't have to matter.

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And I would say really, you can put whatever resource you want.

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It is helpful that you put resources that are relevant to your research.

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And so what might those resources be?

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Number one, the school of the university, right?

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Your institution exists within the confines of a university for many of us.

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And for some of us, perhaps that's not the case.

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And so putting information about your university, how long has the institution been established,

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all the host of detail, is important because even though you may not consider the university

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as such a big deal, I mean, it's the home.

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It's the home in which you live.

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And so it's important that that's in there as well.

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So you want to write about the university, all hospital and healthcare settings that

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you have access to do your research in or recruit subjects for your research or to get

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specimens for your research, all of that should be in there.

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All core facilities that are relevant to your research, even if you have a biostatistical

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team, there's a core facility that's actually supposed to supply biostatisticians.

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You should put that in there.

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Every possible thing you can think of, including your IRB, including your library, including

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maybe even the physician's lounge.

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Actually, to be honest, I've never seen the physician's lounge and the facilities and

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other resources, but you could make that work.

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Absolutely, you could make that work.

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If to say that not only does our institution care about our research well-being, they care

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that we actually get some rest and relaxation.

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I mean, actually, now I'm thinking about it, I should probably put that in my next grant.

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But anyway, I think I say that to make a point that if it helps you move your research forward,

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it should be in the facilities and other resources document.

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Okay, now I will tell you that I really just share my perspective.

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As you know, there are many different perspectives as far as completing the facilities and other

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resources.

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I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

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If you are brave enough, bold enough to be willing to share, I invite you to come to

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our podcast website, clinicianresearcherpodcast.com.

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That's clinicianresearcherpodcast.com.

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And go ahead and leave us a voicemail and say, hey, what you talked about today, I actually

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have other ideas about how to do those facilities and other resources documents.

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And then share.

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And I would love to take your voicemail and create it into another episode for our future

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listeners.

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Okay, that's all I have for today.

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I want to thank you so much for listening.

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And I look forward to listening and talking with you again the next time.

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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.