Synopsis

Keywords: Transferable skills: Grantsmanship

The overall goal of this talk will be to provide a more complete perspective on the administrative concerns and strategies for ensuring grant aims are accomplished rigorously, and just as importantly, that these accomplishments are leveraged appropriately for ongoing success.

You got the grant; now what?

Background: New investigators who receive research funding often receive this funding based on their scientific merits and skillsets, however, they must then manage relatively large budgets that in many cases exceed their cumulative prior lifetime salary. This may also require hiring and managing personnel with different personalities and skillsets, despite many new investigators having little or no leadership or conflict management experience. When this is all successful, continued success will be contingent upon an ability to secure additional funding and to leverage resources available from prior work to secure positions or promotions. In terms of managing a successful scientific program, these administrative skills are just as important as the foundational scientific skills upon which they are based. This talk will discuss concerns related to scientific and administrative aspects of project and personnel management, as well as strategies for extending projects, retaining personnel, and leveraging scientific success for new opportunities.

1. Administrative aspects and prioritization of project start-up. The initiation of a new project requires addressing a series of administrative concerns, as well as budgetary knowledge of the project and flexibility to modify the budget to suit your goals. The first component of this talk will focus on the administrative aspects, and associated recommended timelines, for starting a newly funded project. These will include aspects related to gaining ethical or Institutional Review Board approval, understanding the budget for the project from the Notice of Grant Award, allowances for supplements and extensions, and strategies for adjusting effort and costs to ensure that funding endures as long as possible.

2. Hiring your team and delegating tasks. One of the most challenging aspects of multifaceted scientific projects relates to a need to recruit (or retain) capable staff to help accomplish the work. This second component of the talk will focus on evaluating your current team and skillsets in the context of the project aims, strategies for recruiting new people quickly when necessary, and creating an environment that is conducive to the professional growth of the members and to the topic of the scientific project itself.

3. Renewals and ensuring ongoing funding. One of the more discouraging aspects of science can be an inability to secure a renewal of funding even after successfully accomplishing prior project goals. This third component of the talk will focus on strategies for renewing funding or applying for new funding prior to the expiration of the project. This will ensure that salary commitments for staff can be met, your own salary support is covered, and costs for ongoing scientific projects is available.

4. Leveraging grant success for career advancement. Within academia, promotion is generally based on success in the areas of (i) extramural grants, (ii) scientific publications, and (iii) service to the institute, approximately in the above order of priority. This final component of the talk will focus on understanding your own professional goals and how to leverage success to remonstrate for a promotion at your own institute, or, to improve competitiveness for other positions. This component will be based on the premise that you will have the most negotiating flexibility when you have active, rather than expired or pending, funding.

The overall goal of this talk will be to provide a more complete perspective on the administrative concerns and strategies for ensuring grant aims are accomplished rigorously, and just as importantly, that these accomplishments are leveraged appropriately for ongoing success.

About the speaker: Manus J. Donahue, MBA, PhD, is a Professor of Neurology, Director of the Center for Imaging and Biomarker Development, and Assistant Vice Chair of Research in the Department of Neurology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. His work focuses on developing and implementing novel imaging approaches to better understand tissue function in diseases affecting the circulation, including cerebrovascular disease, central and peripheral lymphatic disease, and neurodegeneration. Over the past seven years, he has been the Principal Investigator or Multiple Principal Investigator of nine National Institutes of Health-funded R-level studies from six different institutes (NINDS, NIA, NCI, NINR, NCCIH, NHLBI). He is the Chair of the Vanderbilt Human Subjects Protections Committee; member of the FDA-established Brain panel to determine endpoints in clinical trials of sickle cell disease; editorial board member for the Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism; and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Biosight, LLC which operates as an imaging vendor and Clinical Research Organization (CRO) for multiple international clinical trials.

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