Research Grant Applications Peer Reviewer s Perspective Juha E Jääskeläinen MD PhD Professor / UEF Neurosurgery Chairman / Neurosurgery / KUH NeuroCenter juha.e.jaaskelainen@kuh.fi
Have you read other researchers grant applications? Who is mentoring you when you write your grant applications? Do you give enough time and attention to your grant applications? Did you get feedback when you were NOT funded?
Clinician or Clinician Researcher PhD?
PhD Thesis and Post Doc period PhD Thesis = research (driver s) license PhD training should not take too much time UEF Clinical Medicine 3 peer-reviewed articles 1 submitted 1 can be used in another PhD Thesis Post Doc period at a famous university! Finnish tradition in Medicine Mikael Knip / Duodecim 2017 4 of my PhD Students at Harvard
PhD training network / read / write EXPOSE YOURSELF and NETWORK internet pages and social media discuss your research with others discuss with others on their research travel READ READ READ articles and journals of our area articles and journals from other areas become a well-read European intellectual WRITE and ILLUSTRATE DOCUMENTS concise / clear / impressive / argumented graphically faultless
Time? there is a lot of awake time Career in clinical research is a way of life We need 50% clinician / 50% researcher posts! 6.00 office hours 16.00 23.00 6.00 sleep
Evidence Based Medicine Käypä hoito Class I (A) evidence
fight disease and quackery reduce errors and complications we will be peer-reviewed throughout our clinical careers
Peer Review (vertaisarviointi) in Academia manuscripts submitted to scientific journals applications for research grants applications for non-competed university degrees PhD Docentship applications for competed university posts PhD training period Lecturer Professor
Anonymous Peer Reviewals in Academia submission of manuscript into scientific journal Editorial Board and Reviewers listed nameless Reviewers comments often available grant application for a research project Reviewers listed? nameless Reviewers comments available? Academy of Finland 0 to 6 points + short comments + list of Reviewers Open Access predatory journals endanger classical Peer Reviewal Prof Juha Kere / Duodecim 2015 and 2017
My Peer Reviewals in Medicine by invitation / non-profit / confidential EANS Acta Neurochirurgica / Editorial Board 2009 600 neuro-oncology manuscripts Cancer Society of Finland 1.800 grant evaluations Member / Basic Cancer Research 2008 11 Chairman / Clinical Cancer Research 2012 19 Vaajasalo Epilepsy Research Foundation 2013 Petri Honkanen Research Foundation 2014 UEF Clinical Research School Board 2010 PhD Student posts Professorship Evaluation Committees 9 at UEF 3 international EANS Research Committee Young Neurosurgeon s Research Prize
Why do I review manuscripts and grant applications? takes a lot of extra time in odd hours! curiosity visibility duty honour Director of Eastern Finnish Neuro-oncology Group Acta Neurochirurgica recent developments Finnish Cancer Society general picture of cancer research supports our own grant applications in translational and clinical research
Finnish Cancer Society grant evaluation 2017 submission by 25 August arrangement of applications at Society Office 1. meeting on 29 August Secretary Chairman of Clinical Research Evaluation Committee Chairman of Basic Research Evaluation Committee Chairman of Cancer Society exclusion inappropriate applications two Reviewers named for each application for oral introduction in the Committee meetings careful check of conflicts of interest do Authors and Reviewers have mutual articles or close collaboration?
Finnish Cancer Society grant evaluation 2017 evaluation interface opens for Reviewers documents structured application research plan list of publications evaluation (0 to 16 points) research quality of applicant (0-6) quality of suggested research (0-6) cancer relevance (0-4) conflict of interest (jäävi) no evaluation arrangements of evaluations at Society Office
Finnish Cancer Society grant evaluation 2017 23 October / meeting of Clinical Reviewers 24 October / meeting of Basic Research Reviewers list of evaluation points for each application oral introduction of each application and applicant Reviewers with conflict of interest leave the room discussion is the mean of evaluation points correct? increase from eg 13 to 13.5? 25 October / final evaluation for Cancer Foundation Board Chairmen of Committees Director of Cancer Society Awarded grants announced in November 2017
HOW to RANK researchers / published articles / scientific journals / grant applications? in Medicine articles published in peer-reviewed Journals number of articles number of recent articles (eg last 5 years) contribution to articles as Author most important sites for Authors? 1. Author Divided 1. Authorship (PhD theses) 2. Author Last Author Divided Last Authorship
HOW to RANK researchers / published articles / scientific journals / grant applications? Bibliometrics (and Altmetrics) based on CITATIONS article is published in peer-reviewed journal high Impact Factor low acceptance rate article may be later cited in other articles number of citations per article (0 to N) determine Impact Factor of Journal H-index of Author other indices / metrics
HOW to RANK researchers in Finnish Medicine HU Terkko Scholar Chart
Young Clinical Researcher s Grant Application CV + Research Plan It is easier to get funded when you have at least one published article
Young Clinical Researcher CV often sloppy / too modest lack of information = NOT competitive
Make informative and easily browsable CV
Young Clinical Researcher CV name date of birth country address phone email net address of Research Group education years universities other studies languages visits courses et al hobbies professional associations positions of trust university society industry
Young Clinical Researcher CV affiliations experience / skills / focuses experience in Your PhD Thesis area computer / data managing / statistical skills Refworks PhotoShop PowerPoint Excel SPSS Research School courses previous funding + applied funding salaried research positions share of Research Group grants own grants
Young Clinical Researcher CV PhD thesis project / environment title supervisors co-workers Research Group net address paid positions / budget / funding time schedule expected time of dissertation? PhD Thesis articles and their schedule published submitted in progress congresses Abstracts Proceedings
Young Clinical Researcher s Grant Application CV + Research Plan
Science is endless hypothesis testing define the question gather information and resources form the hypotheses perform experiment and collect data analyze data interpret data and draw conclusions reject / accept the hypotheses form new hypotheses publish the results
Research plan PhD Thesis with 3 articles TITLE Researchers / affiliations Introduction / Background / Relevant literature / PLOT My / our previous results 1-3 Aims and hypotheses 1-3 Study population 1-3 Methods / experiments 1-3 Statistical methods 1-3 Researchers / duties 1-3 Research enviroment Significance Time schedule BUDGET My PhD education Ethical aspects Where to publish References Figures Tables
Flow chart of your research cohort important!
Learn to make / trim / draw informative illustrations
Research plan VISUAL appearance page limit / font size / line spacing suggested / compulsory structure your grant application is (quickly) judged by first visual impression who you work with supervisors / group thrilling / interesting = PLOT colour images / graphs supporting the plot use PhotoShop / PowerPoint tools / etc graphically perfect / flawless fluent English COMPETITIVE? NOVELTY? DOABLE?
(Young) Clinical Researcher s Grant Application you dont get what you deserve no absolute medico-scientific justice! who are your Mentors and Co-Workers? how impressive / large / unique / novel / competitive is your research COHORT? how thrilling is your research PLOT to read? a detective story for Reviewers!
Supervisors / Senior Scientists / Co-Workers are you in a competent company? Reviewers (should) know your research area what this group has published before? eg during last 5 years H-index senior Researchers Impact Factors of journals does their expertise cover the study design? missing experts? how are they financed for their research?
Search carefully for previous literature essential / relevant / best / latest you are standing on others shoulders
Impacts of your research? try to produce high-quality translational / clinical research data and publish in highimpact journals tell expected impacts of your research SOTE / national society industry economy national stakeholders
Research Grant Applications Peer Reviewer s Perspective Juha E Jääskeläinen MD PhD Professor / UEF Neurosurgery Chairman / Neurosurgery / KUH NeuroCenter juha.e.jaaskelainen@kuh.fi