By Bita Fayaz Farkhad

In graduate school, I was eager to apply for different grants. On several occasions, I helped my Ph.D. advisor put together small grant applications. Although we did not receive any of those funds, the experience helped me understand how even a small amount of grant funding could expand the resources available for research. In my graduate program, applying for external grants was uncommon among health economics faculty. Grant funding received less attention than it did in fields such as engineering because it was not necessarily expected in promotion and tenure decisions.

I later learned how much you can accomplish with one award. Grant funding can help you support postdocs and other members of your team, build a research group, and access expensive datasets. For me, those possibilities made learning how to apply worthwhile.

After graduation, I began a postdoc. I chose the position because I wanted to work on a grant-funded project led by a principal investigator. A few months into my postdoc, I became part of developing a research idea into a grant application. I was fortunate to work with someone who received three grants in a single semester. This allowed me to participate in the process, from developing the idea and writing the first draft through submission. Working with a college grant administrator, using eRA Commons, and even figuring out what to look for in collaborators were all new to me. But as you start to experience some success and see how grants can change your career, you may even begin to enjoy writing them.

One important thing my postdoctoral supervisor taught me was not to wait for the perfect moment. If you have a good idea, start working on it.

My first K01 application
There are different pathways for researchers, beginning with a mentored career-development award. The NIH website describes these mechanisms and their eligibility requirements, which can differ across NIH institutes and funding announcements. At the time, the two pathways I considered were the K01 and the K99/R00. The K01 provides a sustained period of mentored research and career development leading toward independence. The K99/R00 combines the mentored postdoctoral phase with a second phase of independent research support after the recipient obtains an eligible independent position. I decided that the K01 was a better fit for my needs and circumstances.

My training was in economics, but I wanted to develop a research program focused on HIV policy. The K01 offered a way to build the substantive and interdisciplinary training I needed to make that transition. Working with psychologists, epidemiologists, and clinicians helped me understand the behavioral, population-health, and clinical dimensions of HIV that were not part of my economics training. These collaborators also helped me design research questions and interpret findings in ways that would be meaningful beyond economics.

Once I determined that the K01 was the right fit, I applied right away rather than waiting until I felt fully prepared. I did not receive the award on my first application, but I was surprised by how supportive the reviewers were. They described me as having a “unique set of qualifications.” They felt that the methods I proposed stood out from those proposed by other applicants.

It was disappointing that my first application was not funded, but I revised the application based on the comments I received and reached out to the program officer for guidance. Sometimes you can identify the main issues by reading the reviewers’ feedback, but other times it is not obvious which concerns affected the score most. The program officer helped me understand which comments mattered, what was driving the score, and what I needed to address before resubmitting. I revised the application, submitted it again, and received the K01 award.

That experience taught me that an economist can offer something unusual and valuable to a study section. At the same time, having a unique background is not enough. You also need to use the language of the field and demonstrate that you understand its literature. For example, an economist proposing quasi-experimental HIV policy research may emphasize causal inference and planned robustness checks. Economists understand that there may be confounders. However, reviewers from epidemiology, sociology, or other fields may expect you to name those factors explicitly. You may need to discuss the political and cultural environments, stigma, and other influences on the issue you are studying. You may be able to control some of them. For others, you can at least acknowledge them as limitations.

It is important to demonstrate that you understand and respect the work of other fields. You should demonstrate this not only through the words in your application, but also through the way you design your research and your record of working with interdisciplinary teams.

Another common concern among economists is that NIH reviewers may be less enthusiastic about applications based primarily on secondary data. Secondary data analysis can be funded, but the application must clearly demonstrate the importance of the health question and explain how the findings could inform research, practice, or policy. Depending on the research question, it may also help to include activities that connect the findings to practice. For example, when appropriate to the research question, a project could convene a policy summit where researchers, public health professionals, community organizations, and policymakers consider how the findings could inform action. Another possibility would be to develop a policy consultation platform through which policymakers and public health partners could interpret the findings and consider how they apply to specific policy decisions.

These activities should not be added simply to make the application appear more practical. They need to follow from the research question, involve the appropriate partners, and produce a credible pathway from the empirical analysis to decisions or practice. For economists, this may require thinking beyond estimating an effect and explaining who could use that estimate, how they would use it, and what additional work is needed to make the findings useful.

Applying for an R01 before I felt ready
After receiving my K01, I began working on my projects and building more collaborations. Through one of those collaborations, I learned about a special funding announcement related to an important part of a paper we were working on. My collaborator encouraged me to apply. I had just completed the first year of my K01. Applying for an R01 at that point sounded crazy to me. I wondered how I could show the panel that I had made enough progress in such a short time.

But this opportunity had only one deadline. Once again, there was no perfect time to submit a grant application. I decided to prepare an application. I was not too stressed because I knew that I was still in the early stages of my K01. Even if the application were not funded, it would provide a good starting point for deciding whether to pursue this topic through other funding sources.

Because I had already developed a network, I was able to identify people I wanted to collaborate with. In some ways, putting together the R01 was easier for me than preparing the K01, even though an R01 is a larger and more difficult grant. The R01 required me to present a mature, independent research project and demonstrate that the team, data, and research strategy were sufficient to carry it out. By then, however, I understood the process and had people I could ask for help.

Letters of support were also crucial. They showed the reviewers that I had done my homework and had support not only from my close colleagues, but also from the people and organizations needed to carry out the project.

Seeing the process as a reviewer
Another experience that helped me was being invited to review applications for an NIH study section. It was not the same study section that reviewed my application, but it involved similar modeling and secondary data analysis. We hear a lot about what we should and should not do in an application, but sitting in a study section allowed me to see what reviewers expected, how they discussed applications, and which factors drove the scores.

The experience was time-consuming. I reviewed approximately eight to ten applications and spent about a day and a half in the meeting. Still, when you are early in your grant-writing career, it can be worth it to gain a much better understanding of how the review process actually works. Study sections are also dynamic. The people change, and the funding climate changes. It is important to stay up to date.

From one award to the next
My R01 review went well, and I received a great deal of support from the program officer. I submitted the application near the end of the first year of my K01, and by the second year, I had received my R01 award. Receiving grants also changed how I thought about future funding opportunities. When I saw a call for grants, seed funding, or pilot grants, I began thinking about how it connected with the work I was already doing.

This is my story of starting with little experience leading grant applications and eventually receiving an R01. There is never a perfect time to begin. Do not wait until you feel less busy or until you finish one more course or project.