How to get an ESA Research Grant
Published in the ESA Autumn Newlsetter 2007
The European Society of Anaesthesiology (ESA) exists to raise the standards of the speciality by fostering and encouraging education, research, scientific progress and exchange of information. Research is an important and special field that anaesthesiologists and intensive care physicians all over the world deal with, in addition to their daily clinical practice.
The ESA research grants are intended to promote anaesthesia–related research in Europe, and to encourage anaesthesiologists to extend the frontiers of their practice or understanding. It is important in the research field, as in other fields, to reach a good final “product” (e.g. a paper published in a worldwide scientifically recognised journal) to demonstrate the efficiency and productiveness of the economic investment, so priority is given to the best research applications.
We recently organised at the last ESA Annual meeting 2007 held in Munich, Germany a session entitled “How to get an ESA Research Grant” in order to clearly explain and discuss how to prepare an application suitable for definitive approval.
The session included the following issues:
1. How to apply to an ESA Research Grant Programme by Paolo Pelosi
Discussing the types of grants available, who can apply and the application & adjudication process.
2. From idea to research question by Phil Hopkins
Discussing how to identify the background to the research (clinical/scientific problem), why is it important, which information regarding that specific topic was previously available, how to perform literature searches and critical appraisal of the previous literature.
3. Study design by Per H. Rosenberg
Discussing general guidelines for clinical trials, power & statistical considerations, focusing on how to minimise bias & confounding factors.
4.Project feasibility by Patrick Wouters
Discussing resources, selection of patients, co-operation of colleagues, researchers, equipment, consumables, laboratories, research training/experience, research environment, project, management, time-lines, financial management and project reporting.
5. Writing & submitting your application by Benedikt Pannen
Discussing how to write and submit the application, focusing on following the instructions, declarations of commercial interests/conflicts, resources requested, preparation of costs based on quotes (for equipment) or previous usage, overall costs and justification of requested expenditures.
6. Where did I go wrong? by Jennie Hunter
Discussing what to do when the application has been refused and how to improve it for a further possible successful application.
Following the positive feedback from the session we felt it would be beneficial to the wider ESA membership to summarise the main aspects and issues discussed in the ESA Newsletter.
We all do hope that those brief suggestions will be useful to ESA members to prepare better applications more likely to be accepted for award. Remember that all the ESA Research Committee members have experience of applying for research grants. This article is based on the bitter experience of several experts! So never give up hope. Try repeatedly and always take expert advice. And now apply and best luck to all of you!!
Paolo Pelosi
There are 6 grants currently available: Project Grants of up to €60,000 each, to support work of up to two years duration and Research Support Grants for amounts up to €15,000 to assist work in progress or pilot studies. Applications are welcomed for both Clinical, Experimental and Patient safety research in the fields of anaesthesia, pain or intensive care medicine. Awards are assigned after a rigorous selection based on strict scientific quality criteria and competition is intense due to the number and quality of the applications. Most of the projects come from Western European countries, where track record and research expertise make it very likely that they will be able to complete and publish the final results of their research. However, recent efforts have been made to assist Eastern European countries in submitting successful applications. Awards are made to an academic institution or hospital, not to individuals or to departments. Any qualified member of a sponsoring institution in one of the European countries that is represented on the ESA Council or from which the National Society is a Society Member of the ESA, in good standing, may apply. At least one of the investigators should be an ESA member. Re-applications from investigators that were funded in previous years will be accepted after the previous application with either two years delay for full grants (€60.000) or one year delay for pilot grants (€15.000). The names of the successful applicants will be provided at the meeting of the Board of Directors of the ESA at the end of each year and then posted on the ESA’s website. Successful applicants are provided with free registration to the meeting. The grants recipients have to submit short scientific reports during the research period. Finally all the resulting publications and presentations should acknowledge the support of the Research Grant Programme of the ESA. Detailed information on how to apply for an ESA Research Grant are available on the website.
Phil Hopkins
A research grant application based on the best idea in the world is likely to be unsuccessful, unless it is framed into a precise and focussed research question. It is only by going through a refining process that the investigator can properly design a study to answer the question. Let us take, as an example, the idea that regional anaesthesia reduces the risk of pulmonary embolus after major orthopaedic surgery. In order to design a trial and therefore describe that trial in a grant application, the investigator needs to decide which orthopaedic procedures are to be considered, which regional anaesthetic techniques will constitute the intervention and whether they are comparing regional anaesthesia to general anaesthesia or the addition of regional anaesthesia to general anaesthesia against general anaesthesia alone.
Having refined the question and before spending a lot of time progressing to the details of study design, it is worthwhile considering the feasibility. For example, if the likely benefits to individual patients of the intervention are small and the intervention is painful or time consuming for the patient, the recruitment rate is likely to be low. Similarly, if the intervention or outcome measures are costly and the adverse outcomes rare, costs of the trial may be prohibitive. In the example given above, the incidence of pulmonary embolus is relatively low and its diagnosis optimally requires a spiral CT scan of the chest which would be impractical to do on a large number of patients. In such circumstances it might be better to consider a surrogate outcome measure: in our case deep venous thrombosis would be suitable.
The next step is to find out if your question has already been answered because originality is an important determinant of success of research grant applications. This requires you to search the literature, which can be done very efficiently with electronic search resources such as PubMed and Google Scholar. We would recommend, however, if you are new to PubMed that you spend some time using their online tutorials to ensure that you capture all the relevant studies. When you identify a paper that is potentially relevant it is most important that you obtain a copy of the full paper as abstracts can be misleading. Only from the full paper can you judge whether the work is relevant to your study, the methods are robust, the analysis appropriate and finally whether you agree with the author’s interpretation. If the paper supports your hypothesis you need to make clear what your study will add. Where a paper finds evidence against the arguments you use to support the rationale for your study, your critique of the work will need to reconcile potential conflicts.
Per H. Rosenberg
Different issues have to be considered when preparing the study design:
- Definition of study category;
- Approval of Ethical Committee;
- Study Design description;
- Statistical issues.
As indicated in the ”Guidelines”, you need to sort your study into one of study categories, clinical research, experimental research and patient safety research. No one of these categories is superior to each other, but every research plan has to be related to anaesthesiology and intensive care medicine (anaesthesia-related research in Europe). Approval by the Ethics Committee (Institutional Review Board) is required. If this has not yet been obtained by the date of application, an approving statement will be required before the grant money can be awarded and transferred.
In particular it is important to consider what is needed in the Study Design description:
- A clear indication of the type of study: observational or experimental, cohort , case-control , cross-sectional, experimental, randomised controlled, pilot and exploratory
- A clear hypothesis (”specific aims”)
- Study subjects or study model: patients, patient volunteers, healthy human volunteers, experimental animals, experimental model
- Types of variables: scales of variables, types of data, methods of data collection, validity and reliability;
- Statistical methods: consider getting a statistician involved early to advise you on sample size (power analysis) or the amount of data you will need to collect.
Final remarks to be taken into consideration are:
- to be brief (this cannot be emphasised enough)
- the applicant should be aware of the fact that a pilot study (smaller grant) should test on a small case something which will be used on a larger scale in a larger study.
Therefore, one cannot expect that a pilot-study grant will always result in a scientific publication. Hopefully, it will at least result in a scientific poster at one of the ESA congresses. Note, that although the members of research committee often are not the real experts in your field of research, they have a vast experience in research work and from editorial board work in scientific journals. Therefore, their evaluation and decisions are quite valid. In cases of the need for additional expert advice, the grant application is in fact sent to at least one documented external expert for review.
Patrick Wouters
From the conception of an excellent research idea it is still a long way to create a successful grant application. Keep in mind that the granting institute acts like an investor who needs to carefully consider the odds of a proposal to pay off in terms of advancing scientific knowledge in the field of anaesthesia. Besides originality and scientific genius, it is important to show that your project is feasible, i.e. 1) that the scope of the work is proportionate to the available budget, 2) that sufficient expertise is or will be available within the research group to cover all methodological techniques and approaches and 3) that the work can be completed within the allocated time frame. To delineate the scope of the project, it is essential to start with a clear hypothesis and a realistic view on what amount of work is involved in testing it. Failure to do so may suggest that you are not able to oversee the problem, let alone to estimate the resources needed. Feasibility also relates to how well a project is managed in terms of staff utilisation and interaction with other research groups. With methodology and techniques becoming increasingly sophisticated it is important to document the expertise present in your group or to describe how you will co-operate with others to achieve it. Finally, important determinants for the temporal progress of a project, such as the number of patients required (power calculations) and the estimated recruitment rate, should be identifi ed to construct a feasible and realistic time line.
Benedikt Pannen
The structure of the grant application is described in detail on the ESA website. Therefore, this session focussed on some practical hints for the actual writing process. Before starting to write, the planning process should be completed. Preparing a written sketch of the entire project plan in advance is very helpful. The title should be precise, communicate the key issue(s) and should be intriguing. Writing the research summary is usually the very last thing to do. It is the ‘visiting-card’ of the application. The introduction should describe the underlying problem; give good reasons for the research and state, why it is important. Focus on the information pertinent to the topic and provide specific preliminary pilot data whenever possible. Developing a solid hypothesis is the foundation of every successful application. It is the conceptual underpinning on which the entire structure rests. Within the methods section give all information needed in order to decide whether the study design and the techniques chosen are appropriate and adequate to test the hypothesis. This part allows identifying an experienced investigator, in particular if it contains an alternate approach for high risk elements of the application. Within the budget section, all proposed expenditures need to be included (based on quotes or previous usage). Clearly and completely justify each item, including the role of each person involved. List all current support or pending applications to other funding bodies, and declare all commercial obligations and potential conflicts of interest. Finally, list all resources essential for the project, indicate the availability of each item and/or include convincing letters of support if collaborations are necessary. When you are (almost) done, ask yourself (and others!): Is the proposal organised and focused? Does it become evident, that it is based upon well-founded knowledge? Is it convincing that there is a realistic chance to succeed (technically and biologically)? Write and ‘polish‘your summary paragraph and make sure you include all additional material (CV, committee approval, letters, etc).
Jennie Hunter
When applying for an ESA Research Grant, paying attention to basic principles is the essence of success. Have I obtained the correct form (is it this year’s?), and have I completed all the sections? Read the instructions for completing the application repeatedly, and always ask a more senior colleague to read the application when you consider it ready to submit. Do not exceed the number of pages allowed, use the correct font size, and do not have too many cramped figures or tables in the text. Keep to all the deadlines and never attempt to change your application after you have submitted it by sending in a revised version: that irritates the administrators. Common errors during application should be always taken into account. Do check your text for spelling errors (never spell European Society of Anaesthesiology incorrectly!), and avoid the temptation only to quote your own work in the references. Do not exaggerate what you hope to achieve. Make all the costing realistic (do not request thousands of Euros to attend international meetings or publish papers), and make sure that they are within the maximum budget allowed by this grant awarding body. Never submit the same application to more than one source at the same time: it can have disastrous consequences, as expert reviewers can be asked to assess the same application by more than one body at a similar time. Make sure that the references are all in the same standard format and indeed that they are correct (this is the commonest source of errors in any scientific text). Fallibilities are always to be considered. Do not exaggerate the importance of your application (few ESA Grants will be the basis for Nobel Prizes) and be careful not to state that the work is unique, without searching the international literature fully first. It is also preferable not to exaggerate the international status of your research group. In contrast, never try to go it alone: even highly intelligent, hard-working research workers are rarely successful in isolation.
Finally, you must appreciate that the ESA Research Subcommittee has to assess an increasing number of Grant applications each year – over 70 in 2006. It does not put the subcommittee in a receptive frame of mind if you fail to adhere to the basic guidelines for applying for an ESA Grant. Subcommittee members can suffer from over-exposure to, for instance, haemorrhagic dog models, or experiments on septic pigs. Try to submit a completely different research protocol, preferably for a multi-centre clinical study – a topical approach to research. This will stimulate more interest in the weary subcommittee who are longing to be stimulated by something completely different. Remember too that there are many fewer applications for the smaller, pilot grants (€15,000) so always consider applying for one of them.
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