How many aims for an r21

The Aims shall be Three, and Three shall be the number of Aims. Four shalt there not be, nor Two except as they precede the Third Aim. Five is right out. This Post Has 21 Comments And the people did rejoice and did feast upon the lambs and toads and tree-sloths and fruit-bats and orangutans and breakfast cereals… What about R21s and R03s?

No, no. Aim 3: Cut down the mightiest tree in the forest—with a herring! I have a one aim R03 pending. I was counseled that two is not enough work and four is too much. Likely big mistake. Most successful R01 proposals I recently reviewed had two Specific Aims. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published.

Manage Your Award. Funding News. After you have decided the area of research to pursue, start thinking about your planned experiments by first drafting objectives, known in NIH lingo as Specific Aims. Your project should tackle important research within your niche: it must be able to move your field forward. Thinking high level, ask yourself what objectives you could reasonably achieve within the timeframe of a grant.

Start broadly with an emphasis on significance, and then focus on generating experiments with clear endpoints reviewers can readily assess. Limiting your application to a few Specific Aims keeps you clear of the very common mistake of being overly ambitious. It's much better to think small and propose less than to do the opposite.

Another common type of Specific Aim is descriptive. Though this may be very doable, it is rarely a highly significant finding in itself and often should be avoided unless you have no other choice.

Such descriptive findings should usually be part of your preliminary data, not part of your proposal. Although it may seem an early stage to think about specific experiments, cost of those experiments, needed expertise, and resources, these variables go hand-in-hand with picking a project that is both impactful and feasible.

If the project is not feasible, you will need to rethink your experiments or even your Specific Aims. Thinking high level, ask yourself what objectives you could achieve within the timeframe of the grant. Your goal is to create aims that are achievable in four to five years and have clear endpoints your reviewers can readily assess. Some people write their Specific Aims first and then develop a hypothesis; others do the reverse—use the approach that works best for you. Why do you need a central hypothesis or multiple hypotheses?

Because that's what reviewers expect and what anchors your different Specific Aims to a common theme, not just a common field of research. Following a central hypothesis also keeps you focused with both writing the proposal and actually doing the research if the grant is funded.

After you create your hypothesis, go back and take stock again of your prospective reviewers and their level of interest in light of your draft aims and hypothesis. Here we show you how to put to the test your draft objectives—Specific Aims—you have planned for your project.

This step provides a check of your aims in light of the study section you identified and advice on presenting your aims if you propose highly innovative research. Start assessing your Specific Aims by taking a hard look at the significance and innovation of your planned research.

You'll want to get outside opinions for a fresh perspective. Don't assume others, including your reviewers, will consider a research area to have the same priority that you do. If they can understand your project and get excited about it, you have a better chance your reviewers will as well. It is particularly useful to have your application reviewed by a colleague who has been successful in getting NIH funding, or better yet, has served on an NIH study section.

At this point, you may want to go back and reconsider your Specific Aims so you can be as certain as possible that the committee will appreciate your research plans. But where does this leave innovative ideas that are less likely to fit inside "the box"? Hypothesis-driven research does not necessarily constrain paradigm-shifting or "outside-the-box" research, nor does it necessarily mean sticking with the paradigm du jour.

Paradigm-shifting and outside-the-box concepts can still lend themselves to focused hypotheses that can help guide the crafting of solid Specific Aims. Such focused hypotheses need not be tied to a broader theory or paradigm; they may simply provide a rationale that can be used to test the strength of the proposed aim or experiment. Current criteria for scoring applications provide a transparent and fair guide to evaluate large numbers of diverse applications based on the aggregate merit of scientific significance, innovation, and feasibility.

For projects predominantly focused on innovation and outside-the-box research, investigators always have the option to use grant mechanisms, other than R01s, that may better suit their needs [e. Serendipity is likely to happen just as frequently regardless of the grant mechanism supporting the research. As Louis Pasteur said, "Chance favors the prepared mind. Although innovation is one of the five peer review criteria, many experienced investigators report that it's difficult to succeed in review with so called "high-risk" research.

Moreover, due to the higher risk of our work, we may also have a higher failure rate," says Sanjay K. Jain, M. As you scrutinize your Specific Aims, make sure your reviewers will view them to be reasonably close to the scientific mainstream. If your proposal challenges commonly held beliefs, be sure that you include sufficient evidence in your preliminary data to convince the reviewers that these beliefs may not be scientifically valid.

If your research is high risk, it is likely to be highly innovative. Your job is to make the reviewers feel confident that the risk is worth taking. Your opening sentence should grab reviewers attention and also establish the relevance to human health. Tell the reviewers how your proposal will help the agency accomplish its goals. Bring the reviewers up to speed on what is known about the topic with a statement of current knowledge.

Introduce the missing link or gap in knowledge that is holding back the field that you will address with the application. Give the central hypothesis. This must link to the objective. Show how the objective will be accomplished by testing the central hypothesis. State the rationale. Why is this so important and what will it change? What will be possible after the research is conducted that is not possible now? Explain why you and your colleagues are the best team to address the question right now.

There must be complete agreement between the aims and your central hypothesis. Relate the purpose of the proposal to the critical need and mission of the funding agency. Give brief, informative, headlines that will attract the reviewer's attention. Each aim should convey why that part of the research is being done, not what will be done.

Aims should be brief , focused and limited in scope. Aims have to be realistic. Do not overestimate abilities or capabilities for completing the work in the time requested. Your final paragraph should summarize innovation and novelty. Summarize the general impact of the expected outcomes.