NRMN Southeast Training Hub @ Morehouse School of Medicine – Kick Off

NRMN Southeast Training Hub is hosting grant writing coaching group training at Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM), May 10-12, 2017* in Atlanta, GA.

Deadline date (extended):  Monday, April 17, 2017

Faculty, postdocs and those NIH considers trainees/mentees will engage in training that provides a structured group sequence focused on teaching trainees rhetorical patterns and effective writing techniques for NIH-style proposals.

Developed at Northwestern University, this model involves:

• 3-day intensive workshop involving peer and coach reviews
• One-to-one coaching sessions
• Follow up online weekly or bi-weekly group coaching sessions to support progress on the grant application

Trainees will develop their skills across the following areas and/or produce the following:

• Writing approaches from the perspective of rhetorical patterns, and a deconstructed view of how to approach writing for multiple levels and types of reviewers at the same time.
• For individuals writing Career Development Awards (such as F32, K99/R00, K01, K08, K23, etc.), insights and skills for constructing and writing the other parts of the proposal such as descriptions of prior research, career development plans and mentoring teams.
• An NIH grant submission at the end of the program or soon thereafter. Based on past experience, it is not uncommon to get into a group and discover that some are not as ready as they envisioned due to unclear research designs, insufficient preliminary data, and/or a need to complete current work to get publications to demonstrate productivity. In these cases, a person may pull back from continued active writing for a period of time, with the option to rejoin the current or a future group.

Trainees will receive guidance from senior faculty Coaches who meet the following qualifications:

• Success writing several NIH-style proposals of one or more variety that were funded – training and/or research (note – a goal is to expand to NSF proposals in the future but currently focused on NIH-style)
• Some experience giving feedback and guidance to others writing proposals
• Good familiarity with the NIH review process – serving on review panels highly desirable
• Skills at facilitating groups, such as managing different personalities or approaches by group members
• A desire to learn and apply the unique approach to grantwriting developed at NU, which emphasizes rhetorical patterns and cognitive goals of effective proposals, and using a group-based feedback method to developing skills of grantwriting in postdocs and junior faculty
• Sufficient time to commit to working with a group of 4-6 individuals over 3-4 months, starting from a 2-day immersion followed by weekly or bi-weekly virtual coaching sessions of ~2 hours

Desirable (but Not Required) Experiences, Skills and Interests

• Experience mentoring or coaching young scientists from diverse backgrounds
• Institutional responsibilities related to guiding development of young scientists
• Serving on Peer Review panels for research or training proposals
• The ability to facilitate and draw out input from others, not just provide individual feedback (this is a learnable skill)

*program dates contingent upon federal approval