The instructor: Tom Hollon has used the grants writing tactics in this course to help MSU professors win more than $80,000,000 in grants. He has more than 15 years of experience helping researchers win grants and contracts, with special focus on NIH.

Limited Enrollment: No more than 15 MSU faculty preparing an application for a NIH R01 or R21 grant by February 2021. Preference will be given to faculty applying for R01s. Faculty writing R03 grants are not eligible. 

Program overview and schedule: Webinars every two weeks will last 75 to 90 minutes and are recorded, so if you miss one you can catch it later. Each month you’ll get at least one hour of personal attention from Tom on any grant problem you’re grappling with. Then, after your research plan is reviewed by peers of your choosing, R&I editors will edit your research plan to make it its very best.

Sept 17: Webinar: Competitive advantage in NIH R01 grant writing. This kick-off webinar focuses on competitive advantages in NIH grant writing that most professors could use but few do, and lays the foundation for the rest of the course.

Oct 1: Webinar: Competitive intelligence using the NIH Reporter. This free, online NIH grant database can reveal what sort of research NIH has funded in your area, for how much, and which Program Officers to contact to discuss NIH’s interest in your work. Learn to use the Reporter to find the best study section to review your grant, and find copies of grants in your field to study as models.

Oct  5-9:  Individual grant strategy sessions. Tom will meet with you by Zoom to discuss anything in your grant you’re struggling with.

Oct 15:  Webinar: How to write Specific Aims and Abstracts that get reviewers excited. See examples of winning Specific Aims and find out what makes them great. Then do the same for Abstracts.

Oct 26-30:  Hot seat session: Specific Aims and Abstract. You’ll meet by Zoom with Tom and two other class members to improve your Specific Aims and Abstract.

Oct 29: Webinar: How to write exciting Significance and Innovation sections. See examples of winning Significance and Innovation sections and find out what makes them exciting.

Nov 2-6:  Individual grant strategy sessions. Tom will meet with you by Zoom to discuss anything in your grant you’re having a problem with.

Nov 11-15: Hot seat session: Significance and Innovation. Your hotseat group will meet with Tom by Zoom to review and improve your Significance  and Innovation sections.

Nov 12: Webinar: How to make your Approach seem like a guaranteed sure thing.  Examine winning grants for better ways to write the main parts of Approach, how to present preliminary data, how to describe risky experiments, how to summarize experiments and sell them at the same time, and better ways to make figures and tables exciting.

Nov 24: Webinar: Odds & Ends. Reading a Summary Statement, writing a revised application, biosketches, budget justification, facilities, Early-Stage Investigator support, human subjects protections, multi-PI statements, minority inclusion, data sharing plans, letters of support, cover letters, and the vertebrate animals statement.

Nov 30- Dec 4: Individual grant strategy sessions. Tom will meet with you by Zoom to discuss anything in your grant you’re struggling with.

TBD: Peer Review and Editing. As a condition for acceptance in the course you agree to have your research plan peer-reviewed by at least two others in your field. After peer review you may schedule with R&I to have your research plan professionally edited prior to submission.

End Result — probably the best application you’ve ever submitted, and a better understanding than ever of what it takes to win when NIH pay lines are super tight.