How to apply for external research grants

Okay, I think what I might do, um, just in the interest of time is I might, um, kick us off and get at least the welcome, um, started and hopefully, you know, more people will join as We go along. So I would like to thank everyone for joining our session today to learn a bit more about the ins and outs of applying for research grants and the sorts of things that you might need to consider when planning for the various grant rounds that we'll be opening up throughout the year.

We're really fortunate today to have three knowledgeable presenters. We have up first being Dr. Aideen McKernie Leo. from the Fraser Institute with the University of Queensland and also Dr. Andrew Burgess from the Fraser Institute as well. And then we'll also have Lisa Catholic from the Metro South Research Office.

In the spirit of reconciliation, Metro South Health acknowledges the traditional custodians of the country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respects to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.

I'd like to let everyone know that today's session is being being recorded and a copy of the recording will be made available on the Metro South Research Education page and then also the various facility education pages and lots of different locations will try to get this recording out to you so that you can also share it with any of your colleagues who weren't able to make it live today.

Um, I do ask that everyone please hold all your questions to the end, um, as we'll have the three different presenters just kind of rolling through and then we do have some time allocated about 10 minutes at the end for any kind of questions and answers and I'll open up the question box for those online that you can either type in your question or you'll also be able to verbally ask.

Um, and I do also just want to make note that following this session today, we do have a feedback form, um, that we'd like to send out to everybody. And we'd really appreciate it if you could take the time to fill it out. It just helps those of us, um, at the Metro South Research Office and then also the various, um, Research facilitators in the different hospitals who are organizing these throughout the year just helps us to make sure that the events that we organize are useful for you and helps us think about any future topics you might like us to cover.

So please keep an eye out for that one. Okay, so rolling on to the program then. Um, I would like to introduce our first speaker, which is Dr. Aideen McCurney Leo, who is trained as a genetic counsellor in the UK before moving to the US to conduct clinical research at the National Institutes of Health. and lecturer at Johns Hopkins University.

She now leads the integrating genomics into medicine group within the Fraser Institute at the University of Queensland. Generally her research aims to make genetic testing more accessible by upskilling clinicians to offer testing and creating educational interventions to empower patients to make informed decisions.

regarding testing. She has served as a member of the Metro South Human Research Ethics Committee for the past five years, and one of her current research projects involves empowering these members to review genomic applications. So I will stop sharing my screen now and pass over to you, Thank you. Right.

Thank you so much, Jonah. And thank you for the invitation to speak today. Absolutely. Um, delighted to talk to you all. Um, uh, I too, thank you for your beautiful, um, acknowledgement of country. Um, I would too, would just like to add that as we gather for this meeting that we are physically dispersed, we are virtually united and let's take a moment to reflect on the meaning of place and in doing so recognize the various traditional lands on which we do.

Our business today, we acknowledge elders past, present and emerging of all the land we work and live on and their ancestral spirits with gratitude and respect. So I would like to just Andrew and I are going to talk to you today. So, um, Andrew Burgess is our, um, research development manager here at the Fraser Institute.

And he's brilliant. And although I was initially invited to give this talk, I realized that Andrew had a lot more to add to this conversation than I did. So I'm going to just do a little bit of an introduction at the beginning. I'm going to talk a little bit about the research support scheme at the end, but Andrew's going to give the really valuable stuff about tips for grant writing and grant structure, et cetera.

So, um, So types of grants, broadly speaking, you'll hear people talk about Category 1 grants and Category 2 grants, etc. Category 1 grants are basically Australian competitive grants, so you most commonly think of the ARC, the NHMRC, and the MRFF when you think of those categories. But Category 2 tends to be a little bit more of a feasible category of grant to apply for, particularly as a novice researcher.

And the one, of course, we're going to talk about today is the Metro South Research Support Scheme. And, um, but you'll hear of others like the Children's Hospital Foundation, the state and local government grants as well, too. One of the questions people say is kind of, how do I find them? And within UQ, we're very lucky.

We have a portal that's dedicated to that. But very often we end up coming to this portal, which is GrantConnect. So it's run by the Australian government. Um, and it has literally got hundreds of records on there at any one time very often, but if you filter by health or something similar to that, you get a far more manageable list of grants that you can have a look through and that includes everything from the NHMRC and MRFF all the way down to Cancer Australia grants and things like that as well.

So now I'm going to hand over to, uh, Andrew. So Andrew Burgess, as I said, is our research development management here at Fraser Institute. Um, he's incredibly experienced. He's over 20 years of experience in cancer cell biology and medical research more generally, and 10 years running his own research group.

He's very widely published in journals that are incredibly impressive and I will never get to publish in, and has over a decade of experience as a journal reviewer. He also has a lot of experience, not only in writing grants himself, but reviewing grants for others. So when he took the job here, We got this kind of wealth of experience, um, that he could apply to us.

So, um, I'm very grateful to you, Andrew, for agreeing to speak today. So if you like, I'll just drive it from my end and you can let me know when you want me to proceed. Thank you so much for the lovely introduction. Hi, everyone. Um, great to be here. Um, so, yes, um, we'll just dive straight in. Um, Aiden's got straight to the next slide.

So there we go. Um, so I will start with just a couple of the top tips. Um, so the very, very first one I think is really important is to know your reviewer. I actually was thinking about this the other day and I The other thing I would like to think is that after reading everyone's, a lot of grants, it's come clear that we often write for ourselves and not the reviewer.

So we're often thinking about how are we going to make ourselves look impressive, um, and, and things like that. And so a lot of the mistakes we make, uh, because we're, Of our own insecurities or our own preconceived ideas about what we should be doing, and instead, we should really be trying to flip that and start thinking more about what the reviewer is going to be reading.

Um, and so the 1st thing is that reviewers are you. We're all overworked. Um, we've all got kids. We've all got stressful jobs. Um, and we're doing a lot of the reviewing, um, either in the evening after work on the weekends, um, and it's possible as well quite often. So, I mean, I was on panel 1 year. I had 70 grants to read.

So you've got it. And that was I had about 2 weeks to do it. So, when you start to think about the number of grants that a reviewer might have to get through, especially for NHMRC ideas, which is. Topical right at the moment for many of us, the reviewers are likely reading 20, 30 grants, um, and they might only have a week or 2 to allocated to be able to do that.

So when you start to actually divvy up the amount of time, they may get an hour to 4 hours per grant, which is not a lot of time. Um, and so the more that. And the more time that you put on top of that grant to make that process difficult, the more difficult it is for that reviewer to get through, and they're not going to get the gist of your idea within that sort of 1 to 4 hour time frame.

Um, there's a couple of things, um, they may be having a few drinks of wine with it as well. I'm not putting myself under the bus here at all. Um, and they're likely not to be an expert. Um, this is something we'll come back to. I think one of the last points they didn't include, which is a point we'll come back to.

But if you've collaborated widely, you may actually have excluded a lot of people from your field. So you may be conflicted and therefore you might not have an expert who knows exactly what your topic is. So it's really important to remember that and try and write for a broad audience because you may not have somebody who understands all of the ins and outs of your field.

So I think that's that slide,

um, and so leading on from that is keep it simple. Um, this is probably the biggest tip that I would suggest, especially on your first page is to keep it simple and remember the reviewer avoid too much technical jargon, um, and a pitch at a level that is of an intelligence. So somebody who is obviously smart, but.

Doesn't is a non expert in the area, especially on that 1st page. I'd say that's a really important key key point. Um, the thing you want to do is you want to make the reviewers feel smart and not dumb. So that's the getting back to the thing. I was just talking about where we often write for ourselves is that we're trying to make ourselves feel smart.

By showing off and sometimes that comes across as the reverse is that it makes everyone else feel dumb. Um, and you don't want that the reviewer for the room. You want the reviewer thinking that they're, they know, understand everything about what your grant is and that they're actually super intelligent.

Um, the other thing is, is that this isn't a paper grants and not papers. They're not theses. They're not reviews. So you need to be brutal about the information you include. You don't have to have everything in there. You only need to give the reviewer the most important bits of information that they need to understand your grant.

So it doesn't have to have a complete background of everything that has come beforehand. Um, the other thing is to use the, um, and avoid the use of ambiguous words. Um, so often, um, this, what I mean by that is, is try to give a direction. So if something, um, often people go, uh, this gene changed the outcome of the patient's journey.

Um, that's very ambiguous. Instead, you can actually give direction. The increase of expression of this gene made the patient's outcome worse. So now there's a directionality to that, and it's a far less ambiguous. And so trying to remove some of that ambiguity from you, from your grant can really make it a lot easier for the reader.

And then the big one is the use of contraction, uh, contractions, which is the wrong word. Um, it's actually acronyms. Um, I apologize for that. So yes, avoid acronyms wherever you can. And that leads, I think, to the next slide. So why should you not use too many contractions? So it gets back to short term memory.

We only have around about, and it depends, some people, my son only has about two things that he can remember at any one time. Anybody with a son will probably know what they're talking about, teenage boys. Great work. Um, so most people have about four plus a one, um, um, things that they can keep in their short term memory.

And that lasts about 30 to after 30 seconds. So that's about 1 paragraph that people are reading. So every time you use a acronym, you're actually. I like to use the analogy here of a highway. You're blocking up a lane of, um, information. And so you're slowing down the traffic every time you use an acronym.

And if you fill all of those up, then the person's brain essentially is getting loaded up, and they're not able to then process the information as quickly as they should be able to. So I try and use the rule of three, which is a maximum of three acronyms per page, and only use an acronym if you're going to use it more than three times.

Um, and then try and avoid. The other thing that I often see with acronyms is people will contract something on page one and not use that acronym again until page three or four and by then the person obviously will have forgotten it. So don't bother contracting until you're going to use it. So if you're going to use that contraction acronym, sorry, three or four times in a paragraph.

Do it at the very first point of that. Don't worry about contracting it earlier and using that acronym earlier in the grant if you only use it once. Um, the next thing is to be positive. So this is it's really easy to be negative, either about yourself or about others. Um, try and always find the positive story, especially when you're talking about yourself.

Um, there's an example here that I've given, so this is, um, when I gave this talk, this was for an investigative scheme, so it's heavily positive. Directed towards that this example, but you can also use the positivity when you're talking about others research. So instead of saying the field was unable to, um, the field sucked and it never hasn't been able to solve this problem that we've been looking at, try and turn it around and say, The fields found all of this stuff, but I've now discovered this amazing thing and we can take this further.

So it's again talking about the using positive language and the reason for that is if you start talking negatively about others, you introduce negativity into the reviewers mind and that will then flow into them thinking it's okay to be negative about you. So it's just a subconscious trick to avoid allowing the reviewer to start trashing you.

So, um, and, and it, it just keeps the positivity flowing. So if you're positive all the way through your grant, then it's more likely the reviewer will then also be in a positive mindset when they review. So that's just, that's another trick that you can use. All right. So, uh, coming to the grant structure.

So this is. What we're going to go through is just a template. So obviously every grant is different, but these are the 3 main things that you want to get across, especially in the in the 1st page. Um, it will depend obviously on what scheme you're going for. And that's the 1st thing is you want to make sure that you're targeting the right.

Idea for the right grant panel. So if we're going to NHMRC, you want to make sure it's a human health or clinical problem that you're going to be targeting. Whereas if you're going to say NIRC, you want to make sure it's a basic fundamental, um, biological problem, um, for the health sector. Um, you'd not focusing on a human health problem.

Um, so once you've got that big picture idea, you want to make sure that your idea sits within that. Um, and so that is where your hypothesis and aims and what, um, Part of that big picture is missing is, is your idea is going to solve. And the other thing that really important to get on that first page is you and your team and why you are the best people to carry out this work.

So often, um, I see, um, first pages, which are laden with everyone else's data, like the background of all these other amazing people that have done these amazing things. What that tends to do is actually undermine it because you're essentially saying, Here's this really important problem, and all of these other people in the world are working on it, and they're the experts.

Please give me money. Um, and you need to flip that thing around. You need to put yourself as the best person to carry out this work. You need to explain why you have the advantages over everybody else. Okay, so I think we've got some slides of, um, of how we can actually go about structuring that. And so this is sort of a very basic sort of thing, and it's a great starting point.

If you have no idea how to structure the grant, then this can be a great way. And it's not, not every grant needs to follow this, but these are the sort of a standard flow that you can have. So the very first thing I would suggest is the top sentence is you define what the problem is. So for NHMRC or it would be a clinical problem.

So it could be that you're working for ADean, you're wanting to work on genomic health. So you need to define what the problem is there within the genomic health that we can't get genomic sequencing in to get clinicians to use it. For example, okay, so you get that problem up front and then you need to describe what is missing.

What has stopped us from getting up from answering that clinical problem? And that's the knowledge gap. And that's the really important thing. That's sort of the central part of the whole ground that you need to sort of. And then I think the best solution is to then put yourself. This is where you can really add yourself to the grant.

And that's what you, um, the great way of doing that is to use preliminary data. So that's where you can then say, we've got some awesome new preliminary data that answers this knowledge gap. And we're the best place to carry this out. Okay, so that's a way you can insert yourself into that. First page is at that point.

Um, and then I would then link your preliminary data to the to a testable hypothesis. So based on our preliminary data, we now hypothesize that we are going to that. This is what's going to happen. Um, and then that would obviously flow into your aims. And then that's it. That's your first page done. So, um, here's an example, um, which may or may not have come from one of my previous grants.

Um, so I apologize again, if this is not applicable to anybody, but it's just, um, a rough idea to give you an example of how you could do this. So in this case, I was working on lung cancer and the problem was that the standard of care at the time is, was platinum chemotherapy, which works great in some patients, but doesn't work very well for others.

So the problem was we needed to understand why. It wasn't working and what and then also develop some biomarkers that would not be able to help predict who and who wouldn't be able to respond. So that's our knowledge gap. And then I would hit them with. We've found this awesome new bit of data that.

Unlocks some of that, um, knowledge gap that we're missing. Um, and so in this case, we found a new pathway that promoted blood and resistance in lung cancer. So that's allowed me to insert myself and my team into the first page of this grant right up front. And then that led didn't leads into our hypothesis, which is that, um, we.

We can read through that inhibiting the pathway will significantly improve platelet therapy for lung cancer patients and provide a novel biomarker response. And then I've got my three aims. So that's a basic first page. Is that all good? Yep. Um, so we can then dissect that through. So linking it back to that, Very first slide that I showed you where we've got the big picture, which is your lung cancer.

And so as you would build out this first page, you can now start adding in a little bit of details. So I'm just expanding out that what that clinical problem. So now I've given you some, some stats. So here at the top, we've got, you know, nine, approximately 9, 000 Australians die every year from lung cancer.

And that accounts for 70 percent of all deaths and the survival rate's only 22%. So I've given you that clinical problem straight up the top there. Um, and then I've given you the essentially a little bit more information here about platinum chemotherapy. Um, and it works really well in about 15 to 20 percent of patients.

Again, I could have said the opposite. I could have been negative here. And I've said platinum chemotherapy fails for 80 percent of patients, but that's a negative tone. So again, this is an opportunity or an example of where you can talk the positive story rather than negative story. Um, and then I've hit you with the knowledge gap, which is, we don't understand why some patients do and don't respond.

And now I've got my team with my cool, cool new preliminary So that's just an example of how that all fits together. Um, and here's, if we just dissect that, here's some of the sort of key things linking back to some of those, um, tips that I gave you earlier. So one of the first things you see for the clinical problem is to give, um, I often say people will give you a percentage or a real number.

If it's only a percentage, it lacks context for what that means. So if you could say 10 percent of people, um, of melanoma patients will die. How many melanoma patients there are though? If you give a number with that percentage, then all of a sudden it makes sense. So you can say, there are 10, 000 people with melanoma and 10 percent of those die.

All of a sudden now I have a concept of how big that problem is and that's a big problem because I've got real numbers to attach that to. So if you are going to give percentages, make sure there's an anchor point for them. Um, there are no, there are no contractions, acronyms, I've used the wrong words right here.

Um, I've left, I've kept it in a positive tone and I've left a problem for a gap to exist. So in this, I often see this when people will say that they'll, they'll, when they're describing the, what the problem is, is they don't leave enough of a gap for where you can work. So they might say, um, in this example, I could have said platelet chemotherapy doesn't work.

There's no gap now. There's no reason to keep studying. If platinum chemotherapy doesn't work, why bother studying it further? So by instead what I've done here, as I said, it does work in 20 percent of cases. And now there's a, now there's a reason to keep working on it. There's you, you, you've left a small space for you to keep working.

So it's avoid closing yourself off too much. Now that bleeds into the, um, knowledge gap and it's this, I've given a very clear, um, explanation of what is missing. So it's really important. I can't stress that enough. Making sure that knowledge gap is really clear and details what the problem is. And then I've gone through and identified in the case of if it's for me, if it's a fellowship that you're writing for, you would say I have found this, whereas if it's a grant, you probably put you or our team have found this, um, and that's just some language that you can use there.

And then again, I've avoided using it in jargon and kept it very simple so that anybody could hopefully understand what's happening there.

All right, so just to summarize, um, the key points to that first page is avoid acronyms, um, or keep them limited. Again, acronyms are generally there to help you and they hinder the reviewer. So be mindful of that and try to minimize their use. Keep it an easy to understand language. Focus on the big picture.

Um, you can keep some of those technical details rather than all the technical details. You can keep some of those technical details to the background and the experimental plan. Make sure you keep a positive tone. Um, give a clear clinical or biological problem and a knowledge gap. Make sure that's really well explained.

And then if you've got space, a nice visual figure that brings it all together is also a great, great way to make that first page visually pop.

All right. So, um, the rest of the grant, generally, this is what the way the grant will flow is that you'll have a section, a page or so for background, um, a page for preliminary data or so you can mix these all together. So sometimes it may, may, may not make sense to have your background and preliminary data together as one, or you might prefer to have your preliminary data as part of your project plan.

That is up to you. These, uh, Um, as you would still need each of these sections in some form. So you'll need to have a little bit of background information. I suggest with your background, you use some subheadings so that you keep them in nice, short little paragraphs rather than large, long walls of text.

Keep it focused on what is important for just that grant to be understood. It's not a paper, it's not a thesis. They don't need to know the full history of the literature. They just need to know the key bits of information, probably, preferably linked to it. Back to the knowledge gap, what's missing and why they need to know that bit of information.

Um, again, for the preliminary data as well, this is not a thesis, it's not a paper, so you don't need to show all of the flax pots or all of your, all of your bits of data or 20 western blots. You show the one that's really, really important and you highlight it. Um, or you use the summary bit of data that correlates a whole lot of bits of information together.

You want to show the bit that highlights the story, highlights the technique that is critical to the study. Um, and so you want it to be able to do, do multiple things. Okay. Um, sorry. That's all right. Um, with the project, um, again, I personally like to see a very clear rationale or goal up front for why you'd need to do each aim.

So at the beginning of each chain, you have a rationale for why you're doing that aim. And again, that's a short it's. Not a detail. That's just a couple of a sentence or two. Um, this will help provide an anchor for why you're going to do those experiments. The other thing is that often I see a lot of people that will get caught up with, I'm going to do, I really need to do, um, flash tautometry because I like doing flash tautometry, but they don't sort of think about.

Whether or not that's the right experiment to do to answer that. I'm so it's always worthwhile thinking. This is this is where preparing a grant a few months in advance can be helpful is to take a step back and go. Well, this is we need to answer this question. And ideally, we would actually use this other method.

And if that's the case, if that's the best method to use, it's worth then. Thinking about how you would get the expertise if you don't so getting an AI or a CI to help with that making because otherwise it will fall start to fall down because you will likely get a reviewer going why are you using that method it doesn't really answer the aim that you're looking for and that that's where things can fall apart very quickly even if you have a great first page if that's Project doesn't quite mesh together.

Um, and then the methods should be brief. And this is an option. Another opportunity for you to show off. So anywhere where you've done that method before you quote your paper that you published it. So this is another opportunity for you to show off your skills and techniques or you reference to the figure that you've got that method in the in the preliminary data.

Um, so that's. You don't need to go into too much detail. Sometimes I see people going into, you know, we're going to use 10 microliters on day three and you can be a little less descriptive. And depending on the grant, it's more about making sure that you've got the right people in place to carry out the work.

And then the final bit is the references, which is often overlooked. People will just go, we're just going to reference is again, it's not a paper. This is an opportunity for you to show off. Um, so. You should be stacking that references with any papers that you have that can support that you have done the work or can do the work and then highlighting your name.

So especially for an HMRC you have the opportunity, it's a PDF, you can change the color and say all of the CI, all my publications are in red and then you get to see all of your papers in red. So it's an opportunity to to show off again is the references, so don't miss that opportunity. And then I think this is the last slide.

So the last, I mean, I've referenced this before, it's like the, this is probably the least talked about, but one of the probably most important ones that takes years to develop is to build your network. And by that, I mean, not just the people you publish with, you want two networks. You want a network of people that you're collaborating with and a network of people that you don't collaborate with, but that you know very well that can review your grant.

Okay, because you need both of those to be successful. Um, so the way you can do that, um, in the past going on to panels and things like that was a great way. We don't really have panels so much anymore for a lot of NHMRC stuff, but still becoming a reviewer is a great way of, um, getting to know who's out there.

Um, so you can sign up to become a reviewer for ARC, NHMRC, um, sign up to become a, a, a reviewer on journals. Um, that's a great way to build a network. Very quickly, um, make sure you have, uh, your public profiles up to date. So Google Scholar, Orchid ID, make sure they're all there because you will often find, especially, um, reviewers, I know on panels, there would be somebody looking up the person's web of science.

Thing to have a look at them while they were reviewing the paper to see what they're like. So if you don't have a profile, it means that you're just missing out on, um, that kind of information. Um, it's obviously a little bit more tricky. Now, uh, Twitter's becoming interesting, but, um, social media and blogs, they're often a way to build your network.

So there, there was quite a good, um, Twitter science community. Um, that was a great way of meeting people and getting collaborations. Um, and so that's definitely something to consider. Um, Having your own website, um, or a blog is another way. Um, I had my lab had a website and, uh, we would publish protocols on how to do some simple techniques, um, which would, which would link to our papers.

And that I think generated 800 citations for one of our papers. It was getting, you know, 20, 30, 000 hits a year that one of those protocols. So it can be a way, uh, and it was, you know, it took me 10 minutes to put together the WordPress site. So it's not exactly a, uh. It's not necessarily a big thing, but it can be a way to generate a lot of citations.

Um, it's becoming a lot more important. Maybe I'm not sure if anyone will talk about this, but consumers are becoming invaluable. So they're definitely something you should start to consider. Getting involved early in your projects, um, because those relationships can take, um, six, 12 more, more, more months to develop.

Um, and then likewise, making sure you partner with industry and clinicians and building up those as an another area to consider, because that will allow you to start applying to more areas and more grants. And I think that's it. Apologize if I spoke too long. No, that was great, Andrew. All solid gold. As they say in Australia, that's gone straight to the pool room.

I love that. Thank you very much. Um, and I'm just gonna, I'm not gonna take too much more time. I don't have time for Lisa. So, um, but I did just want to mention the Metro South Research Support Scheme. So a lot of the advice that we've that Andrew gave was kind of really solid advice for people who want to do research on an ongoing basis throughout their career, and I suppose there's the other people who kind of like to dip in and out of research at different times, depending on the, as opportunities present themselves.

So, for people who haven't submitted research grants before, I would really encourage you to look into the Metro South Research Support Scheme, and even if you have submitted grants before. Because there's a really nice array of different types of grants available through that. And I did just wanna draw your attention to the novice researcher grant category.

Um, where, uh, last year we gave out, um, seven grants in that category at $25,000 each. And these are obviously for people who have never done, um, research before. Um, just making sure that they're, um. Uh, partnered up with an experienced, uh, person who can help them through the process, etc. Um, but it's a great way to start to build your track record and get your toe in the water.

Um, there's all of the other, um, grants that were within the scheme as well, too, that I really encourage you to look into, including early career researchers. If you've had some experience with grants before, um, but you haven't been the CIA, for example, You might think about an early researcher grant as well, too, for the project grants and the program grants.

I do want to emphasize that there is. A really strong effort in the Metro South research support scheme to be as diverse and inclusive as possible. And there are special grant categories for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander researchers in the novice grant category in the project grant category and obviously very favorably reviewed in the program grant category and the others as well too.

And, uh, there was also this kind of recognition that the pH. That the researchers at the P. A. kind of enjoyed an advantage because they were inside you and they knew lots of people, et cetera. And a lot of research happens at the P. A. But there is a project grant reserved, um, uh, now as a new initiative for people outside of the P.

A. So people at Q. E. to Logan Redland or health community or a Metro South facility that's outside the P. A. So, um, so do bear that in mind as well to. We also have a, in our novice category, um, we have a program in place to try and match up novice researchers with experienced researchers. So if you think that this is something that you would like to do, please reach out to Lisa, who's going to be speaking next and to other members of the group to see if we can help you with that.

Um, the other thing is that I just wanted to say, regardless of the scheme that you're applying to, it's a really, really good idea to look and see what are they looking for. So what are their selection criteria? How are they going to mark your grant application? And here you can see that 40 percent is for the scientific quality, 15 percent for the budget, um, The significance of the community, the clinical impact, and then 25 percent is on the collaborative strength capacity building that can vary depending on the grant.

Category type, the percentages can vary, but those are generally the areas and that people, um, the reviewers are looking for, and they're going to rank you with all of these things, um, uh, for each one. So that, so say you got seven in your scientific quality, then you'd get all 40 percent of that mark, etc.

Um, and cumulatively that how, It adds up to your total score, and then applications are ranked accordingly, where the top ones are the ones that are typically funded. But there is a panel, there is a discussion. And so if somebody scores very highly with one reviewer, not so highly another, that's something that the panel discusses amongst themselves.

I will just say we talked a lot about the actual proposal, but don't forget the application forms. It's very easy to think I'm going to get to this beautiful proposal. I'm going to do everything that Andrew taught me to do. I'm going to make sure the front page is well written, clear language, and all of the aims are really obvious.

And I don't use any acronyms and all the rest of it. And I have put together a beautiful proposal, but That's only 40 percent of your actual score. So it's really important that you don't leave the rest of the online form to fill in at the last minute. So keep an eye on that as well, too, especially thinking about your budget and how you're going to justify that as well, because that's something that can be quite rushed.

So, uh, so that's the end of our slides. Um, and this is Andrew slide, which I really like. So I love this baby. You've got it. You rock and you're going to do really well. And, um, if you've got any questions, please feel free to reach out to us afterwards if we can help in any way. Fabulous. Thank you very much to Aideen and to Andrew for all your pearls of wisdom and great tips there.

Hopefully everyone should be able to take away some real solid tips and information that they can use in planning. Okay. In the interest of time, we will keep moving along. Um, so I'd now like to introduce Lisa Caslick. She is the Metro South Research Support Coordinator within the Metro South Research Office.

She's been with the team since 2015 in a variety of different roles. And I guess most relevant to today's session, um, she manages the Metro South Research Support Scheme that, um, Aideen was just talking about. So I will pass over to you, Lisa. Thank you. Thank you very much. Um, Thanks, Aideen. You're such a great advocate for research in Metro South and the support of novice researchers.

I just wanted to acknowledge that. Thank you very much. And Andrew, thank you for your very practical and frank guidance as well. Um, I encourage everyone to listen closely to those tips. Um. Today, I'm going to speak about grants from a Metro South employee perspective and embed with you my overarching philosophy about your approach to applying for research grants.

I'll suggest to use some important conversations to have. And of course, the thing that we often forget in, you know, the excitement and the rush to be awarded a grant, we forget that there's a big responsibility that comes afterwards as well. And then my

So I'd like you to think as you're considering whether you'll apply for a grant or not, that while it is prestigious to be awarded a grant, receiving public funds to conduct research is also a big responsibility. So you just need to take a step back and have an honest assessment of your capacity to manage the study, the research.

With that added administrative layer that comes with grant funded research. In accepting public funds to, um, support your research, you also have that extra, uh, accountability to the funding body and to the community. And we're repeatedly reminded in the media of, um, when it all goes wrong. So, uh, your ability to manage grant funds appropriately, uh, really, promotes trust in the scientific community.

So all of this is about avoiding waste and being able to demonstrate value for, um, the funding body's investment.

So some of the conversations that are important for Metro South people to have very early on in the planning is, uh, with a research team. So you need input from a diverse collaborative team. That diversity of skills and resources and experience will deliver project outcomes far beyond what you can do by yourself.

And certainly trying to, um, you know, propose that a project is. You and maybe your supervisor, um, when it comes down to the assessment, uh, team, they will certainly question, knowing that you're a clinician as well, whether it's actually feasible to, um, complete the project in the timeframe. If you're allied health staff, you have the Center for Functioning and Health Research team available to you.

Professor Liz Ward, you probably know her very well. Um, and, uh, you should immediately tap into that team if you're considering applying for a grant, uh, Or even just, you know, starting a research project. Uh, if you're with the Metro South Addiction and Mental Health Services, you need to tap into the Research and Learning Network.

Uh, both of these organisations in Metro South are really well supported and well developed to support staff that want to undertake research. So there's no reason for you to try and, uh, go it alone. You also need to have a conversation with your head of department and your business manager. Um, being able to successfully complete your study completely depends on the, um, support framework and the infrastructure available to you in your department.

You need to acknowledge. But first and foremost, um, our focus as a health service is service delivery to patients. So understanding what is possible and what's not possible, uh, will really help you to execute your project successfully. So things like, um, will you need backfill? Are you looking for a protected time?

Is backfill even available, uh, in your department? Uh, do you want to employ a research assistant? Well, how are you going to go about that? Um, developing your budget. That's a big conversation to have with your business manager. Um, You need to just consider things like on costs and then the annual increment, uh, to salary rates.

Um, Aideen will probably agree with me here that, uh, during assessment of research support scheme applicants, uh, applications, it's really easy to pick, um, the budgets that have been done in about five minutes with no consultation. Um, The justification is often really good, but, um, you know, estimate rounding up figures and making estimates and, and not demonstrating that you're aware that there are on costs and annual increments and so on.

Um, you know, it, it doesn't, uh, stand you well in the reviewer's department. point of view. Um, and then you can also ask yourself the question, can my project be done without grant funding? Um, you know, once again, I, I do see a, a lot of effort that goes into a grant application. And then, um, for some reason, Nothing much happens after that and, um, time comes to submit a final report and, uh, it, it turns out that not a lot has happened.

So, again, asking that honest question, is it something that can be done without grant funding? Um, is there a real priority and are you set up with the support of your head of department to complete the project? In Metro South, you should, if you're relying on data, you should have a quick conversation with the data custodian to establish whether that data is ready, readily available, or whether it's going to be a real task for you to access the data that you're looking for.

And that will help you to establish your timeframes and your milestones, realistic milestones. Uh, I recommend in our office certainly welcomes, uh, early conversations, uh, with the research governance officer and our ethics team. If you've got a project with multiple external collaborators, and we encourage that, or if you're proposing a Metro South sponsored clinical trial, or something that's using novel technologies or interventions.

It's a good idea to have a discussion with the team and understand what the ethical implications are and, um, and also understand the time that you will need to commit to negotiate all of these steps. It's um, something we hear a lot, it's time consuming, it's a burden, and there's no denying it's time consuming.

The ethics and governance process can be, you know, quite challenging, particularly if you're a new researcher. However, it's utterly necessary due diligence, and it's there for the protection of your participants, and for your reputation, and for the organisation's reputation. Finally, I recommend that you consult with the Metro South Health Biostats Service.

Uh, our service is, um, run by QCIF through the University of Queensland or aligned with the University of Queensland. This team has worked with our researchers for, um, I don't know, maybe since 2016 and have built really close relationships and maybe some of you are already, um, working with them. They will help you to, um, create your study design, define your aims.

They'll work with you around power calculations and sample size. They'll talk to you about appropriate analysis techniques and even help you with write up and, um, presenting, uh, different components for a grant application or even for a publication. So I strongly recommend that you reach out to the team, um.

In the very early stages and just. Plant the idea of what you have in mind and and they'll take it from there with you

Again part of just going back to the research support scheme, but certainly it's applicable to many other schemes that a lot of projects will fall down because the aims don't support the methodology. The power calculation isn't sufficient to produce meaningful data. So this is, you know, really quite important.

So hopefully you get your grant. Congratulations. Um, I've created a meme. I'm pretty proud. And it's really to demonstrate that accepting the grant is really exciting and that represents, uh, you know, the pinnacle of your hard work. Well, take a step back because here comes an avalanche of paperwork and due dates and other responsibilities and contract signing and so on.

And this part of the process. is also very important. It's part of your accountability to the funding body and to the the public and to the scientific community. So, um, again, targeting this to Metro South, uh, staff. You'll be presented with a funding agreement. This is a legal document. It can only be signed on behalf of the organisation by particular people with the authority to do so in Metro South, and at the moment that's actually only the Chief, um, People Engagement and Research Officer, Dr Cleary, or, uh, the Executive Director of Research, and that's Professor John Upham.

Um, that all is documented in the, uh, financial delegations. Framework, which is on quips. If you did want to refer to that, uh, generally your head of department doesn't have a delegation to sign a research contract. So these should be submitted to the Metro South Research Office. Um, reporting and acquittal, the, the due dates and your milestone dates will be mapped out in your funding agreement.

My recommendation is that you immediately put those dates into a calendar so that you get a reminder and so that you're not waiting for the funding body to, uh, remind you that you've got a due date coming up. Um, don't wait to be asked by the funding body or don't wait to be reminded that your report is, is overdue.

I'm just conscious of the time, so I'm trying to whip through the most important stuff now. Um, so here are my top five tips. And to a degree, uh, Andrew and Aideen have already touched on a couple of these. So hopefully this will just reinforce what's important. Engage with people. Um, speak out the research leaders in your facility or organization, go to research events, subscribe to everything.

It will, um, you know, clog up your inbox, but you can delete them if you're not ready to read them. But this is where you get the, um, the first peek into what's available, um, and gives you plenty of time to, um, plan if you decide that you'd like to seek or follow up some of that funding. And this is how you build your knowledge and your skills network.

You can't do this by yourself, so you need to be building a support network. Prepare early, um, plan to submit the day before. With regard to the research support scheme, it happens every year. Someone will be panicking in the last 30 seconds. We submit through SmartyGrants. I can see real time what is happening.

I can see someone's application has been updated, it's still not submitted, there's 30 seconds to go, I'm ready to throw myself on the floor, and then the deadline passes, and you don't get to submit your application, and you don't get any other opportunity, there's only one way to submit, don't do that to yourself, plan To submit the day before, make that your deadline, and very importantly, um, allow enough time to circulate your final application to, um, peers that are not part of the, the research group and to incorporate their feedback, embrace the process.

There's a lot of us that have kids, so you might understand this reference. You can't go over it, you can't go under it, you have to go through it. Um, it will deepen your understanding of the process and aid your ability to participate more efficiently time after time. Um, tailor your information. Cursory responses.

Do you know favours at all? Um, you need to be very specific to the grant opportunity that you're applying for. Just assuming that your idea or one application from another, um, uh, game, you can just copy and paste it into the closest kind of relevant questions. favours at all and is pretty much a waste of your, uh, effort.

Um, um, And as Aideen and Andrew, um, mentioned, think like a reviewer, uh, they, they look at a bunch of applications and it really does come down to, you know, comparing, uh, the applications that you have, you really need to be able to convey your idea. Clearly, concisely, and, and understand that your reviewer is not the subject matter expert in most cases, but they are very smart people who should be able to grasp your idea if you have conveyed it well.

Um, so that's my, that's my tips, um, if you need to contact me, particularly in relation to the research support scheme, grab a photo. There, that's my phone number and my email. Um, I'd be very happy to answer any questions that you have. Thanks, Shona. Amazing. Thank you, Lisa. That was, uh, amazing tips and really practical advice that you gave there, particularly for, you know, our staff coming from the health hospital perspective and the various people that they need to think about and the steps in the process.

And I 100 percent agree that, you know, it can look very daunting, particularly if this is your first time going through it. But. That you know the process is worth going through even if you're not successful in the end getting that grant. I think just taking that step and having a go and learning this process you will learn a lot the first time you will make mistakes the first time but hopefully that will improve your application for the next time.

So it's definitely worth having a try and taking on board the information from all three of our presenters today. Okay so we do have some time left you. For questions and answers. So the way I'm going to do that, because this is a live event, this is a little bit different to a normal Teams one. So I'm now going to go in and enable people to be able to unmute themselves.

And so they should be able to ask questions. Hopefully.

Hello, Mike. Okay, so I guess if anyone online has a question, if you want to maybe raise your hand potentially for any of our presenters today,

hopefully you can raise your hand.

Hi, everyone. I just, um. I think maybe we don't have any questions because the presentations were so thorough and covered a lot of the key inquiries that I've received. So I just want to say thank you. Always a diplomat, Anne. Always a diplomat. Love it. So thank you for everyone for the tips today. It was wonderful.

Thank you.

You can also write your questions in the chat, too, if people are having mic trouble, so I'll keep an eye on that. Sorry, AD. No, no, no, absolutely. I was just going to say, following on from Andrew's and Lisa's recommendations, one of the things that people said to me is, imagine that you're writing this for a well educated, smart patient.

So imagine you're, you're gearing it to a patient, so very often in that kind of health care world, you kind of think about we're very good as health care providers in distilling it down to the essence that a patient needs in that situation. So if you think of it in that way, you can't really go too far wrong.

And then also being able to, as far as the assessment process goes, you really need to be able to demonstrate That your project is feasible. So, uh, being clear about who does what in the team, assigning active roles to people in the team, um, so that it's very clear that it is a collaboration and it's not just a bunch of names, um, Uh, you know, to support the application, um, and also speak to the impact and, you know, particularly for health service, um, research, speak to the impact of COVID 19.

Um, you know, the difference that this will make for service delivery or for patients and so on.

Okay, so there is a question that Camilla has popped in the chat. Um, so she says to get an idea of the competitiveness of grant applications, do you have numbers for how many applications you receive for the Metro South Novice? research grant. So I guess that would be to you Lisa. Yep. Um, around, it does vary.

We had one crazy year, I think during the first year of COVID, we had a crazy year where everybody decided to apply for a grant. Um, and that year we had about 35, but usually it sits around 17 to 20 applicants. Yeah. Um, and I'm, Kamali, you've just reminded me of something. I'm, I'm not necessarily suggesting that this is where your head is at, but it's just reminded me that trying to hedge your bets and deciding which category to, um, Apply to depending on, you know, how popular it is.

Um, there's, there's some, uh, relevance to, to that. But generally, your better way of approaching is to make sure that you as the applicant are aligned and your project is aligned. With the category criteria. So, uh, you know, if you're a novice researcher, um, and you've got a small team and it's, um, a very, uh, just a specific project that will be done within 18 months or two years.

Program grants is not the one to be applying in and if you've got a really big project and there's a, you know, a lot of work to be done, but you'd like an opportunity for a novice researcher, it's not necessarily the best application to submit either for the novice researcher, the novice researcher grant, you should really be considering, um, a very well planned and highly feasible and achievable project within the two years that the funding is provided and demonstrate that you've got a great supervisor, um, a great team that are bringing different expertise to support you so that you're demonstrating there's that career development, uh, opportunity for you as a novice researcher as well.

Thank you, Lisa. That that's very good advice. Um, is anyone else have any other questions? I can't see any. that anyone has. Otherwise, thank you everybody for attending the session today and thank you again to our presenters Aideen, Andrew and Lisa. Thank you very much for your time and sharing your wisdom.

So, following this session today, as I said, it has been a being recorded. So once the recording is ready, um, look out in for maybe the next couple of days, an email will come around to all of you, um, that will have a copy of the recording. And if the presenters are okay, I'd like to send a PDF copy of your slides for everybody, if that's okay.

Um, and then also a link through to our feedback form for this session. We'd love to know your thoughts on how you found it so that we can improve future sessions for you. Um, and also on that note, um, keep an eye out for our next session will be in May in a couple of weeks time. We're just in the planning stages of that at the moment, but that's looking at quality and research.

Um, so I'd love to have you come along to that as well. Otherwise, thank you everybody and enjoy the rest of your Thursday. Thank you. Thanks, Jonah. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks everyone. Bye.