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Exorcising the ghosts of proposals past
Ask An Expert Edited by Veronica F. Rempusheski Veronica F. Rempusheski, PhD, RN, is Nurse Researcher at Beth Israel Hospital, Boston, MA 02215.
Exorcising the Ghosts of Proposals Past A
NURSE WITH a burning desire to satisfy his or her intellectual curiosity through research will write a proposal and seek funding in order to conduct the study and answer the questions being asked. The scholarly aspects of writing a proposal comprise one part of the process of seeking funding. Underlying the hope of receiving funding is a belief in the product being sent and a belief in the importance of the questions being asked. A debriefing or interim period of time follows each proposal submission before the review of the proposal is received from the funding source. Whether the review letter or "pink sheet" is from a federal agency, such as the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Aging, the National Center for Nursing Research, or from a society, foundation, or local/state agency and whatever the reason given for not being funded, a notice of "not funded" may evoke the creation of a ghost or rejection that may haunt you until you are able to exorcise it and move on to writing another proposal for which you seek funding. Some of us have exorcised our share of several ghosts, yet there remains the hope of success for the next attempt. Several attempts of submitting a research proposal is the norm before success of funding is finally achieved. The old adage, seek and ye shall find, should be the slogan for those of us who have sought out every "hidden" source of money in order to answer the research questions we are asking. The small, competitive grants at the local and regional level of societies and foundations provide an excellent peer review opportunity for the beginning researcher, the building of pilot data that can be used for larger studies, and the building of confidence in writing proposals. Proposal development for local funding is usually the point at which
Copyright • 1992 by W.B. Saunders Company 0897-1897192/0504-001055.00/0
202
my advice is sought by nurses employed in a clinical setting.
Question I am often asked two related questions about research proposal development and funding. First, how do you keep all the "pieces" of a proposal organized in the preparation phase so that you are aware of what you have and what you need? Second, how do you sustain the enthusiasm for resubmission of proposals in the face of repeated " n o funding" notices, especially after you have expended an incredible amount of emotional and physical energy getting the proposal together in the first place? This second question might be retitled, how to refill your glass of energy and enthusiasm once it has been completely emptied. I will address these questions.
Answer ORGANIZING THE PROPOSAL
An important decision before organizing your file for the preparation of a proposal is to consider how you work and whether you want your file to be mobile or stationary. I like to take my file with me between the office and home, to the library as I retrieve articles, and to collaborative sites outside the hospital. In a recent collaborative study using several agencies, I set up my mobile file. A colleague of mine had her "green file box"; I had my canvas bag lined with colored file folders. As we compared our file systems we discovered we had very similar sections in our files. Although the kinds of information you need will vary with the kind of proposal you are preparing and the requirements of the agency to which you are applying for funding, there are some generic sections that can be used for most proposal file systems. These 8 sections are listed below along with potential subsections. Applied Nursing Research, Vol. 5, No. 4 (November), 1992: pp. 202-204
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1. Communication: letters, facsimile transmittals, and memos to and from coinvestigators, consultants, and the funding agency; notes from meetings and telephone calls between investigators, consultants, and funding agency personnel. 2. Budget: forms; quotes on the costs of materials and/or services. 3. Proposal content: aims, purpose, research questions, and/or hypotheses; background and significance; design and methods; procedures; analysis plan. 4. Institutional review board/ethical review information: forms/guidelines; letters of approval. 5. Resources: institutional; people. 6. Literature support: article identified by author/date of publication; articles filed alphabetically. 7. Biographical information of investigators and/or consultants: biographical sketches; curriculum vitae. 8. Letters of support: consultants; agencies. REFILLING ENERGY AND ENTHUSIASM
The following three guidelines or Rempusheski's Rules of Thumb have come from personal experience. Refilling energy begins immediately upon sending out the proposal. I try to prepare myself for the worst, while I hope for the best. I know if I receive the news of not funded I can learn from it, but I also know that I must allow myself time to acknowledge the disappointment. For that reason, I always allow myself at least an hour to grieve my loss of a review that reads "not funded" and then operationalize some of the alternative plans I have prepared in the debriefing period. 1. Make productive use of the interim period of time between proposal submission and receipt of the pink sheet: debrief; review; revise; refine; hypothesize (possible worst case scenario). The rules of guidance and a timeline for the next submission can be outlined while all the frustrations of the current submission are still fresh in your mind. You may have thought that particular strategies and mechanisms of preparing your proposal were well-thought out, but then the process introduced issues, obstacles, and problems you may not have anticipated along the way. Set up a grid sheet with five columns and write down what worked (column 1), what did not work (column 2), why it did not work (column 3, for example, what delayed or interferred with the process), what al-
203
temative strategies could be attempted next time (column 4), and what resources (for example, people, equipment) will be required for the added alternative strategies to work (column 5). Hypothesizing the worst case scenario means that you begin to think about what would happen if the proposal is not funded. What alternative plans could be put into place? From where else might you seek funding? Could a portion of the study be conducted if you were to receive internal funds or a negotiation of your time commitment toward a scholarly activity? What aspects of the study can you prepare for before you receive the proposal review? 2. Keep or develop a sense of humor. Keep in mind that mental and physical fatigue allow us to act and react in ways different from our norm. Some of us become walking disasters! Laugh at yourself, your mistakes, and the absurdity of the situation you have created to get a proposal written, even when your car is towed to some unknown destination, it is 4 Ar~l, 25°F outside, and you can hardly keep your eyes open or conceive of even one brain cell triggering off a snaptic response to anything. Just think: this is absurd! Share these absurd situations with others so you can laugh together with your colleagues. You will come to realize that everyone who has ever submitted a proposal can recall some very vivid memories of absurd, yet seemingly, emotionally painful moments during the proposal process. 3. Devise a plan B and a plan C to carry out the mechanics of submitting a proposal--plans that take into consideration the problems that occured during the last proposal submission. You can almost always expect the copy machine to be broken, even several copy machines at various locations within your setting, and no service man to be found anywhere; or there is a lineup of several other investigators at the copy shop awaiting copy orders with only one person processing the orders; or even worse, these awaiting individuals may be people seeking copying of ordinary documents, not the priority of a grant that is due the next day; what could be more important than this?! Despite the best laid out time line, you can expect to "just" miss the 5 PM express mail pickup from your institution. Have a list of alternative locations for drop off, alternative times, as well as a list of alternative couriers, just in case you need it.
204
In summary, use each submission process as an opportunity to learn and perfect your strategies, timeline, and resources for not only accomplishing the tasks but also for making the process as least painful as possible. Those around us see our efforts and will gain perceptions about the grant writing/ submitting process as well as learn from the way in which we conduct ourselves during these energyintense periods. Reflecting with colleagues about what was done and hypothesizing about what may be done next time may allow new possibilities of collaboration and resources to emerge that may not have been thought about before the experience. Were appropriate people mobilized at appropriate
ASK AN EXPERT
times? Were resources used to their fullest at the appropriate times? Do colleagues know when the grant process is occurring? Could blocks of time be exchanged with colleagues to acknowledge the needs of each to support each other during this process? Are files provided with boilerplate information in which all could use? You may have other guidelines or rules you would like to share with this reading audience that are specific to a research topic or funding agency. How do you exorcise the ghosts of your past proposals? Write to "Ask an Expert" editor and include your experience in using your guidelines or rules.
Exorcising the Ghosts of Proposals Past A
NURSE WITH a burning desire to satisfy his or her intellectual curiosity through research will write a proposal and seek funding in order to conduct the study and answer the questions being asked. The scholarly aspects of writing a proposal comprise one part of the process of seeking funding. Underlying the hope of receiving funding is a belief in the product being sent and a belief in the importance of the questions being asked. A debriefing or interim period of time follows each proposal submission before the review of the proposal is received from the funding source. Whether the review letter or "pink sheet" is from a federal agency, such as the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Aging, the National Center for Nursing Research, or from a society, foundation, or local/state agency and whatever the reason given for not being funded, a notice of "not funded" may evoke the creation of a ghost or rejection that may haunt you until you are able to exorcise it and move on to writing another proposal for which you seek funding. Some of us have exorcised our share of several ghosts, yet there remains the hope of success for the next attempt. Several attempts of submitting a research proposal is the norm before success of funding is finally achieved. The old adage, seek and ye shall find, should be the slogan for those of us who have sought out every "hidden" source of money in order to answer the research questions we are asking. The small, competitive grants at the local and regional level of societies and foundations provide an excellent peer review opportunity for the beginning researcher, the building of pilot data that can be used for larger studies, and the building of confidence in writing proposals. Proposal development for local funding is usually the point at which
Copyright • 1992 by W.B. Saunders Company 0897-1897192/0504-001055.00/0
202
my advice is sought by nurses employed in a clinical setting.
Question I am often asked two related questions about research proposal development and funding. First, how do you keep all the "pieces" of a proposal organized in the preparation phase so that you are aware of what you have and what you need? Second, how do you sustain the enthusiasm for resubmission of proposals in the face of repeated " n o funding" notices, especially after you have expended an incredible amount of emotional and physical energy getting the proposal together in the first place? This second question might be retitled, how to refill your glass of energy and enthusiasm once it has been completely emptied. I will address these questions.
Answer ORGANIZING THE PROPOSAL
An important decision before organizing your file for the preparation of a proposal is to consider how you work and whether you want your file to be mobile or stationary. I like to take my file with me between the office and home, to the library as I retrieve articles, and to collaborative sites outside the hospital. In a recent collaborative study using several agencies, I set up my mobile file. A colleague of mine had her "green file box"; I had my canvas bag lined with colored file folders. As we compared our file systems we discovered we had very similar sections in our files. Although the kinds of information you need will vary with the kind of proposal you are preparing and the requirements of the agency to which you are applying for funding, there are some generic sections that can be used for most proposal file systems. These 8 sections are listed below along with potential subsections. Applied Nursing Research, Vol. 5, No. 4 (November), 1992: pp. 202-204
ASK AN EXPERT
1. Communication: letters, facsimile transmittals, and memos to and from coinvestigators, consultants, and the funding agency; notes from meetings and telephone calls between investigators, consultants, and funding agency personnel. 2. Budget: forms; quotes on the costs of materials and/or services. 3. Proposal content: aims, purpose, research questions, and/or hypotheses; background and significance; design and methods; procedures; analysis plan. 4. Institutional review board/ethical review information: forms/guidelines; letters of approval. 5. Resources: institutional; people. 6. Literature support: article identified by author/date of publication; articles filed alphabetically. 7. Biographical information of investigators and/or consultants: biographical sketches; curriculum vitae. 8. Letters of support: consultants; agencies. REFILLING ENERGY AND ENTHUSIASM
The following three guidelines or Rempusheski's Rules of Thumb have come from personal experience. Refilling energy begins immediately upon sending out the proposal. I try to prepare myself for the worst, while I hope for the best. I know if I receive the news of not funded I can learn from it, but I also know that I must allow myself time to acknowledge the disappointment. For that reason, I always allow myself at least an hour to grieve my loss of a review that reads "not funded" and then operationalize some of the alternative plans I have prepared in the debriefing period. 1. Make productive use of the interim period of time between proposal submission and receipt of the pink sheet: debrief; review; revise; refine; hypothesize (possible worst case scenario). The rules of guidance and a timeline for the next submission can be outlined while all the frustrations of the current submission are still fresh in your mind. You may have thought that particular strategies and mechanisms of preparing your proposal were well-thought out, but then the process introduced issues, obstacles, and problems you may not have anticipated along the way. Set up a grid sheet with five columns and write down what worked (column 1), what did not work (column 2), why it did not work (column 3, for example, what delayed or interferred with the process), what al-
203
temative strategies could be attempted next time (column 4), and what resources (for example, people, equipment) will be required for the added alternative strategies to work (column 5). Hypothesizing the worst case scenario means that you begin to think about what would happen if the proposal is not funded. What alternative plans could be put into place? From where else might you seek funding? Could a portion of the study be conducted if you were to receive internal funds or a negotiation of your time commitment toward a scholarly activity? What aspects of the study can you prepare for before you receive the proposal review? 2. Keep or develop a sense of humor. Keep in mind that mental and physical fatigue allow us to act and react in ways different from our norm. Some of us become walking disasters! Laugh at yourself, your mistakes, and the absurdity of the situation you have created to get a proposal written, even when your car is towed to some unknown destination, it is 4 Ar~l, 25°F outside, and you can hardly keep your eyes open or conceive of even one brain cell triggering off a snaptic response to anything. Just think: this is absurd! Share these absurd situations with others so you can laugh together with your colleagues. You will come to realize that everyone who has ever submitted a proposal can recall some very vivid memories of absurd, yet seemingly, emotionally painful moments during the proposal process. 3. Devise a plan B and a plan C to carry out the mechanics of submitting a proposal--plans that take into consideration the problems that occured during the last proposal submission. You can almost always expect the copy machine to be broken, even several copy machines at various locations within your setting, and no service man to be found anywhere; or there is a lineup of several other investigators at the copy shop awaiting copy orders with only one person processing the orders; or even worse, these awaiting individuals may be people seeking copying of ordinary documents, not the priority of a grant that is due the next day; what could be more important than this?! Despite the best laid out time line, you can expect to "just" miss the 5 PM express mail pickup from your institution. Have a list of alternative locations for drop off, alternative times, as well as a list of alternative couriers, just in case you need it.
204
In summary, use each submission process as an opportunity to learn and perfect your strategies, timeline, and resources for not only accomplishing the tasks but also for making the process as least painful as possible. Those around us see our efforts and will gain perceptions about the grant writing/ submitting process as well as learn from the way in which we conduct ourselves during these energyintense periods. Reflecting with colleagues about what was done and hypothesizing about what may be done next time may allow new possibilities of collaboration and resources to emerge that may not have been thought about before the experience. Were appropriate people mobilized at appropriate
ASK AN EXPERT
times? Were resources used to their fullest at the appropriate times? Do colleagues know when the grant process is occurring? Could blocks of time be exchanged with colleagues to acknowledge the needs of each to support each other during this process? Are files provided with boilerplate information in which all could use? You may have other guidelines or rules you would like to share with this reading audience that are specific to a research topic or funding agency. How do you exorcise the ghosts of your past proposals? Write to "Ask an Expert" editor and include your experience in using your guidelines or rules.