August 18, 2023

Understanding Research Grant Applications

What are grants, how do they work, and how can Atom help

There's no denying that the success of the scientific research largely depends on acquiring crucial grants to drive discoveries forward. However, successfully securing those funds is often more challenging than it sounds, with competition for research grants being fiercer than ever. With that in mind, this blog aims to provide insights into the essentials of successful research grant applications, derived from the findings and insights of several significant metascience papers.

Have you ever wondered how successful research grant applications are approved? As someone interested in scientific funding, you’ve likely encountered obstacles that could use a bit of tweaking. A core theme in Pierre Azoulay’s paper on Scientific risk-taking and grant funding is the risk penalty in NIH R01 grant renewal decisions. Similarly, Maxwell Tabarrok’s comparison of NSF’s and NIH’s responses during the COVID-19 crisis reveals pertinent lessons on flexibility when awarding grants. Metascience, as described and championed by Michael Nielson, challenges the status quo, bringing in an innovative, scientific design practice to reimagine the social processes in the field of science.

Taking Scientific Risks: The Double Edged Sword

In a somewhat controversial environment, taking scientific risks can either make or break your grant application and research. Pierre Azoulay from MIT argues that there’s a belief that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) peer review process punishes scientific risk-taking. His evidence shows that grants in the top decile of risk-taking have 6-11% lower renewal rates than those in the bottom decile.

This suggests that the NIH may indeed be subtly disadvantaging riskier, pioneering research, despite publically stating a desire to support such projects. However, risk-taking isn’t necessarily always penalized, and understanding when and how to take calculated scientific risks forms a key part of successful grant applications.

As Azoulay says: “the costs of undersupplying risky research may be especially salient for early-stage fundamental research, because it is often the type of research providing the broadest shoulders for follow-on innovators to stand on”

Azoulay's research not only sets up a fresh agenda to inspire more scientific risk-taking but also signals how the NIH could be unintentionally stymieing bolder, higher-risk research. His findings underline the necessity for further research to validate the risk penalty and devise interventions to reverse it.

Metascience: A Radical Approach to Science’s Social Processes

In his paper, Michael Nielson puts forth a vision of metascience as an “engine of improvement” for the way we do science. The idea is that metascience should be seen as a creative design process for creating new social processes, rather than just an analytical field. This includes novel approaches to things like funding, open science, incentives, and organizational structures.

Metascience encourages challenging existing models and status quo, thus opening possibilities of new, unexplored avenues. This approach, Nielson argues, can drive major changes and improvements in the science sector, thereby affecting the success of research grants in producing groundbreaking discoveries.

NSF vs. NIH: Comparative Agility During Crises

The NSF's response to the COVID-19 pandemic served as a real-world laboratory wherein some of these metascientific concepts were put to the test.

Re-calibrating the operational approach, the NSF utilized a statutory provision that enabled it to outpace the NIH in terms of grant dispensing speed, despite operating on a budget that was just one-fifth in size. Implementing internal "RAPID" grants with an expedited review process, the NSF funded groundbreaking projects, including the development of the first FDA-approved COVID-19 test. On the other hand, the NIH maintained their usual review timelines.

This event offers empirical evidence that pivoting quickly to allocate resources in times of crises can significantly influence scientific progress. Furthermore, this serves as a case study highlighting the benefits of introducing greater flexibility in traditional funding mechanisms, emphasizing the need for agile grant reviews during emergency scenarios. As such, this could be deemed an actionable demonstration of metascience's potential for transformative impact.

The Need for Bold Reforms

Across the board, it's evident that there are areas in the scientific funding system that require change to foster efficiency, creativity, and resilience. From Azoulay's analysis revealing a bias against risk-taking in the NIH funding system, to Tabarrok’s comparison of NIH and NSF, and Nielsen's call for Metascience to spur improvements, the time is ripe for implementing more conducive systems in grant funding.

As we begin to reshape the social processes in science, a strong Metascience movement can help steer this transition by challenging the status quo and enlightening stakeholders on optimizing crisis response, encouraging risk-taking, and setting the pace for more strategic grant allocation methods. Through this, we can harness the latent potentials in science and enhance the success rates of research grant applications.

In the end, the difference lies in not only the amount of funding, but also in how resources are strategically allocated, ensuring that the best projects receive the support they need to bring about the most societal impact.

Sources

A Vision of Metascience: An Engine of Improvement for the Social Processes of Science (Michael Nielsen and Kanjun Qiu)

Scientific risk-taking and grant funding: A “risky research” agenda for NIH (Pierre Azoulay)

How the NSF Moved Faster than the NIH During COVID-19 (Maxwell Tabarrok)

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