1. Who reviews SAEM grant applications?
The grants committee receives the application from the central office. Each
application will be assigned to a primary reviewer, as well as several secondary
reviewers. In general reviewers will choose to review grants where the subject
area is familiar to their own research or expertise. When appropriate expertise
is not available within the Grants Committee, other experts are asked to provide
ad hoc reviews. The need and number of ad hoc reviews varies: more are needed
when there are many applications and the Grants Committee is small, fewer are
needed when there are few applications and the Grants Committee is large.
2. How does the Committee decide which applications
to fund?
The Grants Committee makes two determinations: (1) whether an application has
met a minimal standard such that is should be funded at all, and (2) what is
the rank-order of fundable applications. The committee refers to the criteria
that are published on the web-site to make these determinations. In recent years,
the committee has formed several sub-committees to review each grant category.
Each member of the sub-committee will look at all the grants in the category,
and submit their rank-order list, as well as some written comments about the
applications. These initial votes are shared with the rest of the subcommittee
in advance of a conference call. On a conference call, the list of applications
is reviewed and a final consensus rank-order list is created. This consensus
comprises the final recommendation that is submitted to the Board.
3. My friend / colleague / former mentor / arch-enemy
is on the Grants Committee. Will he / she review my application?
Our specialty is too small to guarantee that all applicants and institutions
will be unknown to the reviewers. However, any reviewer who has an apparent
conflict of interest is not allowed to review an application, and also not allowed
to vote or participate in the consensus decision of the sub-committee. A conflict
of interest includes when the applicant is from the same institution as the
reviewer or when the reviewer is a collaborator. Reviewers have also recused
themselves from a category because of past mentor-mentee relationships or because
of other preconceived personal opinions.
4. What is the emphasis of the SAEM Grants Program?
SAEM has several grant categories that emphasize research training and career
development. This focus is thought to best serve the membership by fostering
a cadre of members who are in better position to compete for other funding for
their projects. Although specific research projects are an important part of
all the applications, attention must be paid to the potential of each grant
application training plan to provide training that meets the goals of the grant
category.
5. How many grants does SAEM fund?
The number of grants that are made by SAEM will vary depending upon the Research
Fund. In the past few years, about $425,000 of funding has been provided annually
in four basic categories.
· Medical Student Interest Groups (6-8 awards) $ 5,000 / one year
· Emergency Medical Services Research Fellow $ 60,000 / one year
· Research Training Grant $150,000 / two years
· Institutional Research Training Grant $150,000 / two years
6. The SAEM instructions do not match the NIH instructions
for filling out a particular form?
Following the NIH instructions will always be acceptable. The rationale for
using the NIH forms is to increase membership familiarity with this format and
to prevent the need for reformatting biosketches or other pages into a version
that is only useful for SAEM, Note that the narrative portion of each grant
application (the part that is on continuation pages) is the area where we ask
for information that is specific to each SAEM grant.
7. Because I am applying for a training grant,
is the research plan that important?
A research plan is a critical part of research training. An application that
has a poorly formulated research plan conveys to the reviewer that there has
not been adequate mentorship during the development of the application, or that
the proposed training will not be worthwhile. Furthermore, the reviewers will
consider whether completion of the proposed training will place the applicant
in a good position to compete for NIH or other funding. A research plan that
leads to a whole direction of investigation is more likely to succeed in this
goal. Each year, the applications that are received by SAEM include several
with very detailed and well-developed research plans. An application that emphasizes
only didactic training (a master s degree program, for example), will not be
competitive with these other applications.
8. How important is the training plan for a research
grant?
The emphasis of SAEM' s grants program is on development of the applicant rather
than on completion of specific, single projects. Therefore, it is expected that
the applicant will comment on how the grant would improve their training and
progress toward being an independent investigator. In most circumstances, this
progress would require some formal didactic training (courses for a master
s degree, a doctoral program, or a certificate in clinical research design are
examples). Structured training plans (a formal degree) are more credible than
a plan to audit some classes. In some cases, an applicant might address why
a formal degree program is not appropriate (e.g. they already have a PhD). Specific
examples of other formal experiences will also add to the credibility of the
training plan: journal clubs, scheduled lab presentations, training in a particular
laboratory, statistical, or other research technique, etc..
9. After submitting my application, I noticed
that my pages / margins / fonts are not exactly correct. Will this cause my
grant to be rejected?
Probably not. In particular, if the format was consistent with NIH or some other
format, it will likely be OK. Obvious attempts to circumvent the page limits
are obvious. Difficulty complying with the formats may also generate a less-than-favorable
impression for the reviewers.