Preparing effective grant applications.

The abstract and specific aims (described below) sections, two of the most important components of any grant application, must provide a cohesive framework for the application. The abstract provides an outline of the proposed research for the funding agency and the reviewers. Despite the fact that the abstract comes before the research plan in the physical document and is probably read before the other parts of the grant, it is usually written after the research plan is completed. The reason for this should be obvious: It is easier to create an accurate miniature version of the research plan after the hard work of developing the plan and committing it to words is finished. The abstract should include a rationale statement (ie, the “knowledge gap” the research intends to fill), the research question, the overall hypotheses to be tested, a description of the study population and methods (recruitment, clinical, laboratory, statistical, etc), and a summary of the specific aims. The final statement in the abstract should indicate how the proposed research will advance knowledge and practice in the discipline. In addition to providing a summary of the grant for reviewers, the abstract will be used by the funding agency to decide which group of reviewers is best suited to assess the grant. NIH grant abstracts are also uploaded into Computer Retrieval of Information on Scientific Projects, a searchable database that provides scientists the ability to search for scientific concepts and emerging methods or to identify specific grants and/or principal investigators.