2011 preliminary research proposal guidelines for applicants
Metrics details. All investigators seeking funding to conduct implementation research face the challenges of preparing a high-quality proposal and demonstrating their capacity to conduct the proposed study. Applicants need to demonstrate the progressive nature of their research agenda and their ability to build cumulatively upon the literature and their own preliminary studies. Because implementation science is an emerging field involving complex and multilevel processes, many investigators may not feel equipped to write competitive proposals, and this concern is pronounced among early stage implementation researchers. This article addresses the challenges of preparing grant applications that succeed in the emerging field of dissemination and implementation. We summarize ten ingredients that are important in implementation research grants.
2011 preliminary research proposal guidelines for applicants
Metrics details. All investigators seeking funding to conduct implementation research face the challenges of preparing a high-quality proposal and demonstrating their capacity to conduct the proposed study. Applicants need to demonstrate the progressive nature of their research agenda and their ability to build cumulatively upon the literature and their own preliminary studies.
Because implementation science is an emerging field involving complex and multilevel processes, many investigators may not feel equipped to write competitive proposals, and this concern is pronounced among early stage implementation researchers. This article addresses the challenges of preparing grant applications that succeed in the emerging field of dissemination and implementation.
We summarize ten ingredients that are important in implementation research grants. For each, we provide examples of how preliminary data, background literature, and narrative detail in the application can strengthen the application.
While no application can include a high level of detail about every ingredient, addressing the ten ingredients summarized in this article can help assure reviewers of the significance, feasibility, and impact of the proposed research. Peer Review reports.
Investigators seeking funding to conduct implementation research face the challenges of preparing a high-quality proposal and demonstrating their capacity to conduct the proposed study. Researchers need to demonstrate the progressive nature of their research agenda and their ability to build cumulatively upon the literature and their own preliminary studies. This article identifies ten of the important ingredients in well-crafted implementation proposals; in particular, it addresses how investigators can set the stage for proposed work through pilot data and a well-crafted and rationalized proposed study approach.
It addresses questions such as: What preliminary work is important in the grant applications, and how can implementation researchers meet this challenge? How can investigators balance scientific impact with feasibility?
Where in an implementation research proposal can investigators demonstrate their capacity to conduct a study as proposed? A significant and innovative research question is the first and primary ingredient in a successful proposal. A competitive implementation research application needs to pursue scientific questions that remain unanswered, questions whose answers advance knowledge of implementation with generalizability beyond a given setting.
By definition, implementation research in health focuses on a health condition or disease, healthcare settings, and particular evidence-based interventions and programs with promise of reducing a gap in quality of care.
It is conducted in usual care settings with practical quality gaps that stakeholders want to reduce. However, to make a compelling argument for scientific innovation and public health significance, a research grant application must have potential beyond reducing a quality gap and implementing a particular evidence-based healthcare practice.
The application must have potential to advance the science of implementation by yielding generalizable knowledge. With only one journal devoted solely to implementation science [ 1 ], researchers must be aware of implementation literature that is scattered across a host of discipline-specific journals. Implementation researchers—akin to students with multiple majors—must demonstrate their grounding in implementation science, health diseases, disorders and their treatments, and real-world healthcare delivery.
Although implementation science is often characterized as an emerging field, its bar for scientifically important questions is rising rapidly. Accordingly, the Institute of Medicine [ 2 ] has identified studies comparing the effectiveness of alternative dissemination and implementation strategies as a top-quartile priority for comparative effectiveness research.
But experimental studies testing implementation strategies need to be informed by systematic background research on the contexts and processes of implementation. While investigators must demonstrate their understanding of these complexities, their grant proposals must balance feasibility with scientific impact.
This paper addresses the challenges of preparing grant applications that succeed on these fronts. Though this article focuses on U. Grant review focuses on the significance of proposed aims, impact and innovation, investigator capacity to conduct the study as proposed, and support for the study hypotheses and research design. The entire application should address these issues. Investigators early in their research careers or new to implementation science often struggle to demonstrate their capacity to conduct the proposed study and the feasibility of the proposed methods.
However, those that do are clear that applications must convey investigator training and experience, capacity to conduct the study as proposed, and support for the study hypotheses and research design [ 3 ]. The more complex the project, the more important it is to provide evidence of capacity and feasibility [ 4 ].
The R01grant mechanism is typically large in scope compared to the R03, R21 and R34 a. Program announcements for grant mechanisms that are preliminary to R01 studies give important clues as to how to set the stage for an R01 and demonstrate feasibility. For example, the NIH R03 small grant mechanism is often used to establish the feasibility of procedures, pilot test instruments, and refine data management procedures to be employed in a subsequent R The NIH R21 and the R34 mechanisms support the development of new tools or technologies; proof of concept studies; early phases of research that evaluate the feasibility, tolerability, acceptability and safety of novel treatments; demonstrate the feasibility of recruitment protocols; and support the development of assessment protocols and manuals for programs and treatments to be tested in subsequent R01 studies.
These exploratory grants do not require extensive background material or preliminary information, but rather serve as sources for gathering data for subsequent R01 studies. These grant program announcements provide a long list of how pre-R01 mechanisms can be used, and no single application can or should provide all the stage-setting work exemplified in these descriptions.
Review criteria, typically available on funding agency web sites or within program announcements, may vary slightly by funding mechanism. However grants are typically reviewed and scored according to such criteria as: significance, approach feasibility, appropriateness, robustness , impact, innovation, investigator team, and research environment. Table 1 summarizes the ten ingredients, provides a checklist for reviewing applications prior to submission, and ties each ingredient to one or more of the typical grant review criteria.
Therefore we examined a variety of sources to identify recommendations and examples of background work that can strengthen implementation research proposals. We also studied grant program announcements, notably the R03, R21, R18, and R01 program announcements in implementation science [ 6 — 9 ]. Ultimately, nine experts responded to our request, including six members of the Implementation Science editorial board. Respondents were also asked whether there are any additional factors that were not listed.
While all the ten ingredients below were considered important for a successful application, several experts noted that their importance varies according to the aims of the application.
This was viewed as particularly important when the study section to review the grant may not understand or appreciate implementation research. In these cases, it may be important to define and differentiate implementation research from other types of clinical and health services research. It may also be important to convey that implementation research is very complex, necessitating the use of multiple methods, a high degree of stakeholder involvement, and a fair amount of flexibility in order to ensure that implementers will be able to respond appropriately to unforeseen barriers.
As emphasized at the beginning of this article, the essential ingredient in a successful implementation science proposal is a research question that is innovative and, when answered, can advance the field of implementation science.
Assuming that an important question has been established to potential reviewers, we propose that the following ten ingredients can help investigators demonstrate their capacity to conduct the study and to demonstrate the feasibility of completing the study as proposed.
For each ingredient, we provide examples of how preliminary data, background literature, and narrative detail in the application can strengthen the application. The primary rationale for all implementation efforts, and thus a key driver in implementation science, is discovering how to reduce gaps in healthcare access, quality, or, from a public health perspective, reducing the gap between Healthy People [ 13 ] goals and current health status.
Accordingly, implementation research proposals should provide clear evidence that gaps exists and that there is room for improvement and impact through the proposed implementation effort. This is a primary way of demonstrating the public health significance of the proposed work. Gaps in the quality of programs, services, and healthcare can be measured and documented at the population-, organization-, and provider-levels [ 14 ]. Several kinds of preliminary data can demonstrate the quality gap to be reduced through the proposed implementation effort.
For example, investigators can emphasize the burden of disease through data that reflect its morbidity, mortality, quality of life, and cost [ 14 ]. An implementation research grant should cite service system research that demonstrates unmet need [ 15 ], the wide variation in the use of evidence-based treatments in usual care [ 16 — 19 ], or the association between the burden of disease and variations in the use of guidelines [ 20 ].
Investigators can also document that few providers adopt evidence-based treatments [ 21 , 22 ], that evidence-based treatments or programs have limited reach [ 23 ], or that penetration [ 24 ] into a system of care can be addressed by the implementation study. Regardless of the specific approach to documenting a quality gap, investigators should use rigorous methods and involve all relevant stakeholders [ 14 ]. In fact, stakeholders can demonstrate their involvement and endorse quality gaps through letters of support attesting to the lack of evidence-based services in usual care.
A second key ingredient in implementation research proposals is the evidence-based program, treatment, policies, or set of services whose implementation will be studied in the proposed research [ 25 — 27 ]. Moreover, many health settings experience a huge demand for better care. Implementation research proposals must demonstrate that the evidence-based service is ready for implementation.
For example, Chambless et al. Further, Chambless et al. Researchers who come to implementation research as effectiveness researchers or as program or treatment developers are well positioned, because they can point to their prior research as part of their own background work. Other researchers can establish readiness for implementation by reviewing evidence for the treatment or program as part of the background literature review, preferably relying on well-conducted systematic reviews and meta-analyses of randomized-controlled trials if available.
Any research striving for generalizable knowledge should be guided by and propose to test conceptual frameworks, models, and theories [ 38 ]. Yet, theory has been drastically underutilized and underspecified in implementation research [ 38 — 40 ]. While translating theory into research design is not an easy task [ 36 ], the absence of theory in implementation research has limited our ability to specify key contextual variables and to identify the precise mechanisms by which implementation strategies exert their effects.
McDonald et al. Within the realm of theory, they differentiate between grand or macro theories e. Though models, frameworks, and systems are generally at a higher level of abstraction than theories, it is important to note that the level of abstraction varies both between and within the categories of the hierarchy. The thoughtful integration of both conceptual models and theories can substantially strengthen an application. Conceptual models, frameworks, and systems can play a critical role in anchoring a research study theoretically by portraying the key variables and relationships to be tested.
Even studies that address only a subset of variables within a conceptual model need to be framed conceptually, so that reviewers perceive the larger context and body of literature that a particular study proposes to inform. Given the confusion surrounding definitions and terminology within the still-evolving field of dissemination and implementation [ 44 , 45 ], grant proposals need to employ consistent language, clear definitions for constructs, and the most valid and reliable measures for the constructs that correspond to the guiding conceptual framework or theoretical model.
Proposal writers should be cautioned that the theory or conceptual model used to frame the study must be used within the application. A mere mention will not suffice. A conceptual model can help frame study questions and hypotheses, anchor the background literature, clarify the constructs to be measured, and illustrate the relationships to be evaluated or tested.
The application must also spell out how potential findings will inform the theory or model. Numerous models and frameworks can inform implementation research. For example, Glasgow et al. Similarly, Proctor et al. Damschroder et al. Others have published stage or phase models of implementation.
Magnabosco [ 49 ] delineates between pre-implementation, initial implementation, and sustainability planning phases. Investigators may find it more helpful to draw from mid-range theories because they discuss the mechanisms of change at various levels of the implementation context [ 26 ]. For example, social psychological theories, organizational theories, cognitive psychology theories, educational theories, and a host of others may be relevant to the proposed project.
Given the different roles that theory can play in implementation research, investigators would be wise to consider relevant theories at multiple levels of the theoretical hierarchy when preparing their proposals. It is far beyond the scope of this article to review conceptual models and theories in detail; however, several authors have produced invaluable syntheses of conceptual models and theories that investigators may find useful [ 10 , 41 , 50 — 56 ].
Successful implementation of evidence-based interventions largely depends on their fit with the preferences and priorities of those who shape, deliver, and participate in healthcare. Stakeholders in implementation, and thus in implementation research, include treatment or guideline developers, researchers, administrators, providers, funders, community-based organizations, consumers, families, and perhaps legislators who shape reimbursement policies see Mendel et al. These stakeholders are likely to vary in their knowledge, perceptions, and preferences for healthcare.
Their perspectives contribute substantially to the context of implementation and must be understood and addressed if the implementation effort is to succeed.
preliminary research proposal guidelines for applicants How to write a research proposal - Study Guides and The candidates have done sufficient. Discuz! Board Gunner Bradley from O'Fallon was looking for marsden preliminary research proposal guidelines for applicants Darrin Reynolds found the.
R01 Research Project Grant. Reissue of PAR See Section III.
This document has been archived and replaced by NSF Refer to Section V.
R01 Research Project Grant. See Section III.
Writing implementation research grant proposals: ten key ingredients
See also, information on the application portal. The Marsden Fund operates a yearly funding cycle and makes an annual call for proposals in December. The Council consists of eleven eminent researchers spanning a range of disciplines. To assist the Council, ten discipline-based assessment panels make recommendations on the proposals in their area of research. See page 9 for a full list of panels and their definitions. Two —stage process, with an Expression of Interest to be submitted by the February deadline.
