Rev. 6/18/14, 1:30pm
Introduction to CHIP, and
Some Reflections on Grant
Writing from the Trenches
Jeffrey D. Fisher, Ph.D.
Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Psychology
Director, Center for Health, Intervention, and Prevention
University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT
CHIP Grantsmanship Training Workshop
for Health Behavior Researchers
June 19 and 20, 2014
Welcome to CHIP
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Although CHIP began in 2002 with a focus on HIV prevention,
it is now a University Research Center with internationally
known scientists in the fields of HIV prevention, obesity
prevention, medication adherence, exercise science, autism,
cancer prevention, complementary and alternative medicine,
meta-analysis, and experts in other health domains as well. At
CHIP, these researchers -- from disciplines representing almost
every school and college at UConn -- work together to address
critical public health-related problems.
CHIP’s Mission
The University of Connecticut’s Center for Health,
Intervention, and Prevention (CHIP):
 Creates new scientific knowledge and theoretical
frameworks in the areas of health behavior, health
behavior change, health intervention, and prevention.
 Health is broadly defined and may include physical
and mental health, and outcomes with critical
implications for health (e.g., decreasing stress).
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CHIP’s Mission (continued)
 CHIP encourages work at the intersection of behavior
and biology (e.g., increasing medication adherence).
This includes genomics, which has strong
psychological, physiological, and behavioral healthrelated components (e.g., decisions to receive genetic
testing).
 CHIP disseminates its research and cutting-edge
interventions widely.
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CHIP serves as a nexus for investigators at the
University of Connecticut and other institutions
to form cross-disciplinary, collaborative
partnerships for the development of research in
health behavior and health behavior change.
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CHIP Research Network
• Our network includes more than 225 affiliate scientists from
almost all of the schools and colleges at the University of
Connecticut, from other universities, and from other
institutions.
• Our boundary spanner, Jennifer Wang, can find you almost any
type of expertise you might need in your grant proposal from
our affiliate network.
Jennifer Wang
Program Coordinator and Boundary Spanner
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CHIP Total Cumulative Costs Awarded
$110.0
$94.5 $100.2
$100.0
$88.1
$90.0
$74.4
Millions
$80.0
$70.0
$60.9
$52.2
$60.0
$45.2
$50.0
$36.0
$40.0
$26.7
$30.0
$17.2
$20.0
$10.0
$66.9
$3.4
$8.3
$0.0
FY02 FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06 FY07 FY08 FY09 FY10 FY11 FY12 FY13 FY14
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CHIP Total Costs Expended
FY02 vs. FY14
$10
$9
$8
526% Increase
$7.41
Millions
$7
$6
$5
$4
$3
$2
$1.41
$1
$0
FY02
FY14
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Countries in which CHIP
Currently has Funded Projects
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CHIP Grant Proposals Submitted
CHIP Affiliates submit about $50M in CHIP
grants each year.
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CHIP Services
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CHIP Lecture Series
 The CHIP Lecture Series hosts about 20 speakers
annually, many of whom are internationally recognized
researchers.
 The lectures are streamed live and also are archived on
CHIP’s website.
Jennifer Wang
Donna Hawkins
Program Coordinator and Boundary Spanner
Program Assistant
The CHIP Programs and Research Development Team
is responsible for the CHIP Lecture Series
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CHIP Internal
Seed Grant Opportunities
 Generally, CHIP has a seed grant competition for
CHIP faculty affiliates, in which they can submit an
application for funding pilot work in any area of
health behavior change in which they plan to write an
external grant.
 CHIP also offers graduate student seed grants.
 Seed grant announcements will be available in
September on the CHIP website (http://www.chip.uconn.edu/).
(Jen Wang administers all CHIP seed grant programs.)
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CHIP Services
CHIP offers:
 Pre-submission review of the overall content of
external grant proposals by outside experts.
 Methodological and statistical pre-submission review
of grant proposals. Writing of the power analysis and
data analysis sections by our statistical consultant.
 Access to samples of awarded internal and external
grants.
 Searches for external grant funding opportunities.
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CHIP Interest Groups
 CHIP recruits and mobilizes networks of health
researchers with common interests in “interest groups”
(Obesity, Cancer, e/mHealth, HIV, and Health
Marketing).
 CHIP Associate Director Deborah Cornman
coordinates the CHIP interest groups
and works closely with interest group
directors and members to increase CHIP
grant submissions in the areas that the
interest groups serve.
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CHIP Grants Management
Support Services
 Pre- and Post-Award Grants Management
 Personnel and Payroll
 Purchasing
 Travel
Susan Hoge
Melissa Stone
Personnel, Payroll Grants, Purchasing, Travel
Head of
CHIP Admin Team
AnnMarie White
Kathy Moriarty
Grants Management
Grants Management
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CHIP Technology Support
 CHIP IT Support Services
 Provides assistance at interface of IT and health behavior
science (e.g., creating Internet-based interventions).
 Provides assistance with eHealth/mHealth technology.
Chris Tarricone
Director of IT at CHIP
Josh Hardin
IT Support Consultant
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Some Reflections
from the Trenches:
Organized (and More Dissociated)
Thoughts from
25 Years of Grant Writing, and
$25M in funding as an
NIH Principal Investigator
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Grants Involve Scientific Writing,
Which Can be Painful
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My Thoughts on Scientific Writing
• While it can be painful when it is in process, scientific
writing can be a source of creativity, great pleasure,
and a contribution you can make to posterity when the
writing is complete.
• One needs to do at least an hour of scientific writing
every day. You’ll be amazed how much you can write
in a week, a month, and in a year.
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My Thoughts on Scientific Writing
(continued)
• Don’t have much ego involved in the early drafts – try
to write a complete draft quickly and early in the writing
process, without worrying too much about its quality.
You will feel relief – all you have to do now is improve
it!
• Do your scientific writing the first thing each day.
When you are done, you will feel you have
accomplished one of the most important things you
could have done that day!
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My Thoughts on Scientific Writing
(continued)
• Write early drafts in a relaxed atmosphere in which you
are not self-critical; allow creative thoughts to emerge
and incorporate them, uncensored. See if they pass the
“test of time” as you edit the document.
• Don’t ever be so invested in what you have written that
you are conflicted at making changes to it, or even in
eliminating large sections to improve the document.
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My Thoughts on Scientific Writing
(continued)
• One should read a manuscript or a grant proposal front
to back many times at different junctures during the
writing process, making changes throughout it each
time.
• One needs to spend much more time revising a
manuscript or a grant proposal than writing the initial
draft. Make many sets of revisions. Keep revising it
until you think it is exceptional, and believe that others
will agree.
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Writing a Successful Grant
•
To me, grant writing has always felt like a lottery in which pages of PHS 398 or
SF 424 are filled with my research dreams and fantasies. By writing great
prose, I can increase my chances of winning (being funded) dramatically.
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Writing a Successful Grant
(continued)
• Its always seemed amazing to me that I could write
my private thoughts about “the way the world
works” on NIH grant forms and get several million
dollars from the U.S. government to fund every
aspect of the research necessary to find out if I am
right or wrong.
• When you think about it, that is really quite
remarkable.
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Writing a Successful Grant
(continued)
• To write a successful grant, you have to become
obsessed with what you are doing; writing a fundable
grant is all-consuming.
• You need to spend considerable time on it every day.
• You need to think about it while falling asleep and
while taking a shower.
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Writing a Successful Grant
(continued)
• You have to believe deeply in what you are proposing,
be highly enthusiastic about it, and it has to be written
so that this is contagious to those reviewing the
proposal.
• These days, you won’t get funded unless what you
write is exceptional. Don’t even think about writing
a grant unless you are willing to do everything in
your power to make it outstanding; otherwise, it’s
a waste of time.
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Writing a Successful Grant
(continued)
Coming Up with the Research Idea for a Grant
• When I was in graduate school I worried that I would choose a
research focus that someone else had already fully addressed.
• It has never happened in 43 years.
• When I am immersed in a research area, and have read widely in
it, I am constantly getting ideas about critical things that are
missing from the literature, or critical next steps that might make
major conceptual or applied contributions to the area of study.
There are good ideas for grants.
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Writing a Successful Grant
(continued)
• I also get research and grant ideas at CHIP brown bags,
in conversations with colleagues, when reviewing
others’ papers for publication, and while I am engaged
in mundane, unrelated activities.
• I have a pen with a post it pad next to my bed, and
sometimes I call my voicemail in the middle of the
night to record a research or grant idea.
• Some ideas “stick” and others do not survive my own
scrutiny when I revisit them over time, or the scrutiny
of my research team.
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Writing a Successful Grant
(continued)
• I think that if one is immersed and deeply interested
in a research domain, lets him- or herself be creative
without self-censoring, he or she will not have
problems coming up with good ideas for grants.
• The trick is deciding which are the most innovative,
important, timely, yet feasible, and likely to be
reviewed well and funded.
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Writing a Successful Grant
(continued)
• A grant, like an article, has to tell a story.
 It has to be a GOOD story for an article – a
GREAT story for a grant.
• You have to convince the grant reviewers that you
are proposing to perform research in an important
area, that has critical things UNDONE, and that you
will do some of the most important of these,
systematically.
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Writing a Successful Grant (continued)
• For health grants, you have to convince the reviewer that there is a
terrible health problem that exists, and later in the grant, convince them
that you have a powerful idea that might help to resolve it.
• I call this my “Horribleness/Terribleness Paragraph.” (From my South
Africa Options Grant.)
“The HIV epidemic in South Africa has created catastrophic human
suffering that extends to all segments of society, threatening the
future prosperity and viability of the country (Thomas, 2004). It is
estimated that between 1.2 and 2.3 million South Africans have
died from HIV/AIDS; that 70% of deaths among South Africans aged
15-49 are attributable to AIDS; and that more than 600,000 South
African children have been orphaned by this disease (Dorrington et
al., 2004; Rehle & Shisana, 2003). AIDS-related morbidity and
mortality have also had an enormous economic impact on South
Africa, from the cost of caring for the dying to a dramatic reduction
in the workforce (Mhone, 2002).”
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The Literature Review
• You must convince the reader that something critical is missing
from the current understanding of the problem or with past
attempts to resolve it, and that YOU will “fill in the critical
missing piece.”:
“There are few completed U.S. trials of successful HIV transmission risk
reduction interventions designed specifically for PLWHA (Fisher et al.,
2004, 2006; Kalichman et al., 2001; Richardson et al., 2002; Wingood et
al., 2004), and to our knowledge, there have been no such trials in South
Africa. (Of relevance, however, is a brief, IMB model-based HIV-risk
reduction counseling intervention for South African STI clinic patients at
high risk for HIV, but who have not been diagnosed with HIV, that was
found to be effective at increasing HIV preventive behavior; Simbayi et
al., 2004b). The scarcity of research regarding effective HIV prevention
interventions for PLWHA in South Africa, together with the potential for
such interventions to have an important impact, especially when
delivered in the context of clinical care, highlights the need for
development of interventions to assist South African PLWHA to reduce
HIV transmission risk behavior.”
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The Literature Review (continued)
• A strong literature review for a grant should later be able to be
published independently in a top tier journal. Don’t let its final
resting place be the unpublished body of your grant.
• Two of my literature reviews for grants were later published in
Psychological Bulletin.
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The Grant Body
• The work which is proposed in a health behavior change
grant must have critical conceptual and applied implications.
Often, but not always, lack of relevant theory can hurt one’s
chances of being funded.
• A health behavior grant usually entails a series of studies, or
several phases of proposed research.
 They must progress logically from one to another.
• It can never appear that particular research findings
from work early in your grant are a precondition for
your performing the work which you propose to do
later in the grant.
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The Grant Body (continued)
• It can never appear that you may ultimately find that any
critical aspect of the proposed research is not feasible to
perform.
• You often need to cite your own pilot work or others’ earlier
research in a similar or related area and using similar
methodology in order to prove the feasibility of the proposed
research.
37
A Paradox
• If you provide too much evidence that your work will
(almost certainly) be successful the reviewers likely will not
fund it.
• If you provide too little evidence that your work will be
successful the reviewers likely will not fund it.
• There needs to be a good potential that the proposed work
will solve an important conceptual and/or applied problem
but it can’t be a “slam dunk,” or it may appear there is no
reason to fund it.
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Some Dissociated Thoughts
• The proposed work shouldn’t be too ambitious for your stage
of career and previous experience leading grant funded
projects. There are appropriate grant mechanisms for every
level of previous grant funding and every career stage.
• If there are potentially contradictory findings/predictions to
your research which are more or less equally likely, either
must be important and have implications for health.
39
Some Dissociated Thoughts (continued)
• CADILLAC Assumption: It doesn’t matter what it costs
(within reason); propose to do the research well! You are not
spending your own money or trying to save it; your job is to
do ‘world class’ research.
• Assemble the very best possible team. Don’t be limited by
your institution or your colleagues. Recruit the very best
people in the field to join you in the grant proposal.
• If there are any weaknesses in your own background/
experience/strengths, add others to the research team who
have those strengths.
40
Some Dissociated Thoughts (continued)
• The Proposal:
 must be extremely well-written.
 must ultimately have a simple, parsimonious, powerful,
intuitively appealing theme.
 must be user-friendly to read and to interact with.
 If you make it painful for the reviewers to read it,
they will make the outcome of the review painful to
you!
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Some Dissociated Thoughts (continued)
• In the proposal, at every stage, do more than the
minimum:
 Do pilot work and report its results.
 Include appendices with drafts of your outcome
measures, possible intervention content, etc.
 If you are using a new technology, provide an early
version of a sample of it to demonstrate that your team
can master the technology (LifeWindows example.)
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Anticipating Problems
• A grant writer must look at his or her proposal with a
microscope searching for potential weaknesses and refute
them either by changing the proposal so they are no longer
present, or by convincing the reader they are not highly
problematic.
• Any possible flaw must be anticipated and refuted almost
immediately, before it becomes troubling to the reader
• It is critical to have knowledgeable others who are not
involved in the proposed work and who can think “out of the
box” review the grant and see if there are any weakness that
you have not envisioned. (CHIP can help you with that.)
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Proper Balance between Lab and Field Work
and Between Conceptual and Applied Content
• I believe that in the best health promotion grants, there is
strong theory and strong potential for application of the work
for practical (health) benefit.
• Health promotion research must generally be done in the “real
world” with participants at real risk for a particular health
condition.
• Laboratory work is possible as part of a health promotion
grant, but not a large part.
• I’ve seen many attempts to try to apply the typical social
psychology laboratory research paradigm to health problems
which fail miserably in review because it is too synthetic.
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Statistics Section
• The statistics section should be written by a
statistician who can make complicated statistics
understandable to an intelligent scientist on the
review panel who is not a statistician.
• I believe that the best statistician for a project is
someone knowledgeable in terms of sophisticated
statistics, but also in your content area, so he or she
can not only understand your results but also suggest
alternative analyses that are meaningful.
• Blair will tell you more.
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The Review Committee:
Study the Membership of the Committee that will Review the Proposal.
BEHAVIORAL AND SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF HIV/AIDS STUDY SECTION
Center For Scientific Review
(Terms end 6/30 of the designated year)
CHAIRPERSON
----------------------PATTERSON, THOMAS L , PHD, (14)
PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHIATRY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
LA JOLLA, CA 92093
COOK, ROBERT L , MD, MPH, (19)
PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT OF EPIDEMIOLOGY
COLLEGE OF PUBLIC HEALTH
AND HEALTH PROFESSIONS
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
GAINESVILLE, FL 32610
MEMBERS
---------------BOGART, LAURA M , PHD, (16)
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT OF MEDICINE
HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL
BOSTON, MA 02215
CUNNINGHAM, CHINAZO , MD, (18)
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
DIVISION OF GENERAL INTERNAL MEDICINE
MONTEFIORE MEDICAL CENTER
ALBERT EINSTEIN COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
BRONX, NY 10467
BOWLEG, INGRID ALISA , PHD, (14)
PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY
GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
WASHINGTON, DC 20052
BULL, SHEANA S , PHD, (14)
PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNITY AND BEHAVIORAL HEALTH
SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO, DENVER
AURORA, CO 80045
GAROFALO, ROBERT , MD, MPH, (14)
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT OF PEDIATRICS
CHILDREN'S MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
FEINBERG SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
CHICAGO, IL 60614
GIORDANO, THOMAS P , MD, MPH, (18)
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT OF MEDICINE
BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
HOUSTON, TX 77030
46
LI, XIAOMING , PHD, (14)
PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT OF PEDIATRICS
SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY
DETROIT, MI 48201
MIMIAGA, MATTHEW JAMES , SCD, MPH, (19)
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT OF EPIDEMIOLOGY
SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
BOSTON, MA 02115
NYAMATHI, ADELINE M , PHD, (15)
DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR
SCHOOL OF NURSING
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES
LOS ANGELES, CA 90095
OTTO-SALAJ, LAURA L , PHD, (15)
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL WORK
CENTER FOR ADDICTION, BEHAVIORAL HEALTH RESEARCH
HELEN BADER SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WELFARE
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN, MILWAUKEE
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN, MILWAUKEE
MILWAUKEE, WI 53201
OWNBY, RAYMOND L , PHD, MD, (15)
PROFESSOR AND CHAIR
DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHIATRY AND BEHAVIORAL MEDICINE
COLLEGE OF OSTEOPATHIC MEDICINE
NOVA SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY
FORT LAUDERDALE, FL 33314
REYNOLDS, NANCY R , PHD, (19)
PROFESSOR
SCHOOL OF NURSING
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HEAVEN, CT 06536
ROURKE, SEAN BRENDAN , PHD, (14)
PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHIATRY
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
TORONTO, ONTARIO, M5B1W8, CANADA
SEAL, DAVID W , PHD, (14)
PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT OF GLOBAL COMMUNITY HEALTH
AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND TROPICAL MEDICINE
TULANE UNIVERSITY
NEW ORLEANS, LA 70112
SOLOMON, SONDRA ELICE , PHD, (18)
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY
UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT
BURLINGTON, VT 05405
WALDROP-VALVERDE, DRENNA , PHD, (19)
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
NELL HODGSON WOODRUFF SCHOOL OF NURSING
EMORY UNIVERSITY
ATLANTA, GA 30322
47
The Review Committee
• Know their areas of expertise, prejudices, and likely views
in areas relevant to your proposal (MEMS cap adherence
story)
• Don’t forget to cite their work if it is relevant
• Be gentle if you are claiming that their work is problematic.
• Rick will tell you more.
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The Budget:
Getting More Bang for the Buck
• In the budget justification, make it appear that you are going to
great lengths to save money. If reviewers see one item that
seems excessive, they may think the entire budget is excessive.
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The Budget:
Getting More Bang for the Buck
• The “Optics: can also be important
• A no treatment control group can be a no cost natural history
cohort (two for the price of one.).
• A no treatment time and attention control group can test another
intervention the target population may need, but which won’t
affect the primary outcome variable (two for the price of one).
• In my high school grant proposal I pitted three different types of
HIV prevention interventions different types of schools would
want to use vs. a “standard instruction” control condition. This
could have identified 3 effective HIV prevention interventions
for use in schools, not just one (three for the price of one).
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That’s All, Folks!
51
Feel free to contact me if you have
any questions or would like to discuss any of this
material further, and let me know how CHIP can
help you with any future grant proposals.
Jeffrey D. Fisher, PhD
Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Psychology
Director, Center for Health, Intervention, and Prevention
jeffrey.fisher@chip.uconn.edu
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