How many grant proposals should should you submit?

0:00 Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. As clinicians, we spend a decade or more as trainees learning to take care of patients. When we finally start our careers, we want to build research programs, but then we find that our years of clinical training did not adequately prepare us to lead our research program. Through no fault of our own, we struggle to find mentors, and when we can't, we quit. However, clinicians hold the keys to the greatest research breakthroughs.

0:40 For this reason, the Clinician Researcher podcast exists to give academic clinicians the tools to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. Now introducing your host, Toyosi Onwuemene. Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast. I'm your host, Toyosi Onwuemene, and it is a pleasure to be speaking with you today. Today I'm going to be talking about how many grants to submit. I was at a conference just a few months ago, and I was leading a discussion about tips for successful rewriting, and one of the questions that was posed to me was, how do you know when it's time to stop submitting grants?

1:27 And I thought that was a really great question, because sometimes it can feel as if there's no end to submitting grants. It feels like you're always submitting. And so then the question is, how do you handle that? How do you know when enough is enough? Is there ever a limit? And so I want to talk a little bit about that. And I think it's important to recognize that we're not really counting numbers. We're not saying, oh, yes, one is too little and seven is too many. I mean, the question is really about your goals and also being strategic about your submission as well. Now I will tell you that I've had the opportunity to submit many grants that have gone unfunded, and there is so much benefit to submitting a grant that really goes beyond just getting the money.

2:18 Don't get me wrong, getting the money at the end of the grant is so nice. It's kind of the major goal, but it's not the only goal. I want to speak to that a little bit before I talk to you about five ways to know that it's time to submit a grant. So when you are pulling together a grant, what you're doing is taking an idea that's kind of somewhere in your head and you're creating and building it out. You are taking something out of nothing. You're taking something literally out of thin air. You're giving it body, you're giving it life. You're calling collaborators who will help you do this work.

2:59 And the more you're making it real by writing it out, by thinking about all the components, what is needed to bring this to life, the more you're bringing something out of the invisible to become visible. It is magic. Or at least it feels like magic, and it's not really. If you think about it, you look around you right now, everything you see used to not exist. And it exists only because it first existed in somebody's imagination. And it was in somebody's imagination until they made blueprints, put structure around it, and then somebody knew what to build based on their blueprints.

3:44 When you write grants, you're doing the same thing. You are taking an idea in your mind. You're putting it on paper. You're creating a blueprint that somebody else, preferably your team, is going to be able to use to build the actual building. And so many of the things, many of the discoveries that are waiting to happen will happen because you're bringing the idea out of your head onto the paper. And that sounds all well and good. It's like, well, what's the point if nobody gives me money? Somebody's going to give you money. What happens when you bring out the idea from your head for the first time, it's pretty raw and all the pieces don't quite come together.

4:28 You are able to bring it together for the grant submission, but it could be more refined. And so when you get the feedback from that grant and then you rework it and you repurpose it for the next grant, you're using all the same building blocks that you've used before, but now you've had space between the project. And so you're able to think about it more deeply. You're able to refine it. You're able to say, well, how does it fit this funder a little bit better? Every time you take your project and work on it again and rewrite the grant, it's becoming sharper, it's becoming more focused, it's actually answering all the questions that are raised.

5:09 And that's why it's important that you enjoy the work you're doing, that you have a sense of purpose about the work, because it really does take commitment to take something from kind of like the raw version of like uncut stone to chisel out a masterpiece. That's what you're doing when you're writing grants. So I want you to think about it like that. And then I want you to now think about five ways to think about when it's time to submit a grant. I only started in this way, but I want you to know that it is important. The first thing you want to do is define the impact you want to make. You're not here to play. Writing grants takes time, energy, and effort.

5:49 So it better be something you want to do. And yeah, nobody gets up and says, I would like to spend the rest of my life writing grants because it's not really about writing grants. You could be writing other things. You could be writing a mystery thriller, the next New York Times bestseller. Nobody writes just to write. You write because there's a reason behind your writing. You write because your writing gives you something that you don't have already. Yes, ideally, that's money, but it's more than that. Before out to make an impact in a specific area of study, or at least I hope you are, some people are not. Some people are just there to say, hey, I did this thing and now I'm done. Or some people might be there to say, well, you know, I did the project that my mentor wanted me to do and now I'm done.

6:36 And I hope that's not you. And if that's you, that's okay. I was there too. It's an opportunity to stop and reassess and say, hey, I may have been just doing this thing and now I want to stop and actually take ownership. And what is the place in which I want to contribute? One of the things that could be helpful, and I always will share this, is that working with a coach is helpful to help you really think through your why. It can be hard to do on your own. And sometimes there isn't the space. You don't always have the peer mentoring or even the mentoring to be able to do that. Because sometimes you're saying, I'm going to do something different from what my mentor has laid out for me.

7:17 Or you're saying, I'm going to do something that, you know, I'm going to do something different from what I've been successful in for years. That's a hard place to be. And to some extent, your mind rejects that. It's like, well, I know it's what I really want to do, but they're going to be so mad at you. Are you sure that's what you want to do? And what you need is for someone to create space for you so that you can really objectively and logically weigh all the pros and cons and make a decision that is in your long term best interest. And so if you're a woman in hematology, you don't have a coach, let's talk and let's see if we can establish a relationship that helps you win in this way, that helps you clearly define the impact you want to make so that you can be intentional about building that impact.

8:03 But what you want to do is define the impact that you want to make. So important. Because it guides everything you do. And even when you get rejections, it helps you remember that, okay, this is the impact I want to make. It is absolutely worth this impact. This rejection is just temporary. I can move this forward. And it really does help you reframe. And to be honest, it energizes you while you're writing because you're like, wow, if this project actually took off, if we were able to succeed, oh my goodness, it's so energizing. So to have a strong sense of the impact that your work can make is so important in moving forward. I want to ask you, don't settle.

8:45 Don't settle for a project that's just so-so. Or maybe it is a nature worthy manuscript that you're working on. Great. But does it drive you? Like, does it energize you to work on it? Don't settle for work that doesn't move you. That's my encouragement. You don't have to, so don't do it. And if you're like, huh, really? I can live like that? I can actually let go of work that doesn't energize me? The answer is yes, you can. And I'm not saying it'd be an easy switch, but it's an important switch because the work that really helps you feel like you're making an impact is work that you keep doing no matter what.

9:33 So you can pick yourself up from the ground of rejection and move forward again. Okay. The second thing that you want to think about is find out what it will take for you to make the kind of impact you want. When we start out in our careers, many times we're very focused on protecting our own time, and that's important. Protecting our own time is important. But the real impact we make is when we have money to fund other people to do the work, right? In order to be able to fund other people to do the work, you have to know what work needs to be done. Like, what does it take to bring my project to life? What does it take for execution? And when you are very clear about that, then you know what resources you need.

10:17 And so what you're really doing and finding out what it will take to make the kind of impact you want is you're defining the resources that you want, not just people resources, but also things, not just things, but also people. So clarifying what it will take, what resources are needed helps you to do number three. Number three is decide who are the people that can help you make this impact. I read a really awesome book recently, co-written by Dr. Benjamin Hardy and the author, strategic coach whose name I do not remember right now. But it is a great book.

10:58 It's who, not how. You're at a place in your career where you don't need to go back to the very beginning and learn all the skills again and then try to compete with people who've been doing the same thing for years. What you want to do is find a collaborator, a collaborator who already has those skills and then join up with them and allow the synergy to carry the work forward. But you know what? These collaborators, especially any that are worth their salt, are already busy doing other things. So if you want to distract them from the work they're doing, you should be able to compensate them for their time so that the work that they do for you is actually paid for and then they're able to really, really help you.

11:44 So you want to know who these people are so that you can figure out how to fund them, right? You want to decide who are the people who will come alongside you on this project, who are the people who have the expertise that you need, who will carry the work forward because then you know what you need to fund them. And that's number four. Number four is find out what it will cost to fund them. And so it's very interesting. One of the ways we think and research as physicians is that everything should be done for free. And so there's so many networks of people where it's like, well, do it with sweat equity.

12:24 And the truth is, apart from in the physician world, not much gets done with sweat equity anywhere. Everything costs something. You know, if you're doing work with sweat equity, then you're taking from your family time, you're taking from your rest and rejuvenating time to do the work. The reality is, as a physician leader, as a clinician leader, as a scientist leader, you need people to help you carry out your vision. So figure out what it takes to fund them. And that is what helps you really define how much is needed, how much is needed. And then you now decide what grant opportunities help me fund the people that I found that helped me make the kind of impact I want to make.

13:15 Now you have the answer to what you need. You have a clear understanding of the infrastructure you need to make the kind of impact you want. So now it's time to take that to the opportunities that are available. Now if you're doing work that's really meaningful, it's going to be a large sum of money that helps you move forward because you're going to want great expertise. You're going to want the right people at the table. You're going to want the right expertise at the table. And so you're going to have some serious need for funds. And you want to find the opportunities that match those needs.

13:56 And it may be sometimes you have to go for smaller pots of money because that's what's available. But I do want you to think big. What you need is what you need. And yes, many of these competitions are really competitive. Oh my goodness, they're stiff. But what you need is what you need. And to be honest, the kind of investment it takes to submit a grant, a big grant, is only marginally larger or marginally bigger than the investment to submit a smaller grant. The payoff is much more significant. So you want to assess your needs, figure out what it takes to fund that, and then go after funding opportunities that align with your needs.

14:41 That's number five. Find the right opportunities that align with your needs. Number six is to keep submitting until you have the money to fund your vision. So here's the thing. Yes, I'm saying what you guessed at the very beginning, you're going to submit a lot of grants. You're going to submit a lot of proposals. You are. But here's the thing. The first proposal may be the hardest proposal you submit. This is assuming that you're staying within one focus and you're not in like three or four or five different places where every time you write a grant, you're doing something brand new. You're staying in one area of focus. You write one grant.

15:22 When you go to write it again, there's a lot of material that you've accumulated in the writing of that grant that you can take and apply to the next grant. Now, is it so simple where you just kind of move the puzzle pieces together and you can succeed in this grant? No, it's harder than that. But what you find is over time, it gets easier. Over time, you know the language. Over time, you know how to say things a certain way. Your work gets better over time. It refers to the compound interest I spoke about in a previous episode is that the more you're investing, the more return you get on your investment. And staying in an area of focus, submitting grants in that same area over and over again really gives you an advantage.

16:09 Yes, by the time you get to the seventh submission, your work is so polished. You're like, of course I got the grant. Oh my gosh, it couldn't have gotten more perfect than that. It gets better over time. What also happens over time is you become more strategic about where you are applying to because different funders have different priorities. You become very strategic about how to pursue the right funder to get your projects funded so that the impact can be made. So to answer the question as to how many grants do you need to submit, you've guessed it. The answer is you keep submitting until your vision is complete.

16:53 For some people, it'll be after 20 years of research and writing and being a scientist. For some people, it'd be 30, 40 years. For some people, it's like after 10 years, I'm done. That's different for everyone. But it is important to recognize that you've come to make a specific contribution. And even if you never make it, right, we have a big, hairy, audacious goal. And we may not necessarily be the one to solve that huge problem, but we're chipping away at it. We're working towards it. We're getting closer to its solution, the solution of the problem, and it's energizing.

17:35 And even if somebody else comes and finally makes that discovery, it's energizing that you've been able to work on it as long as you have. And so you keep submitting until the day is won, until the impact is made, or until you pass the baton off to somebody else to keep doing the work. So because the work doesn't stop, because your impact is not yet made, because there's still outstanding people who are coming along for the ride of a lifetime on this mission with you, you keep submitting so that you can fund them, so that you can fund yourself. So this idea that is so precious has life and can go and do something great.

18:21 It's been a privilege to talk with you today, if this episode has been helpful to you. I want to invite you to share it with someone else. Somebody else needs to hear this, needs to be encouraged that their rejections are not final, they're part of the journey, and that over time, their rejections become less severe because you're able to use them strategically to your advantage. If you're a mentor and a mentee needs to hear this, please forward it to them. Please also leave us a review because that's how other people can find us. It's been a pleasure to talk with you today. I look forward to the next time.

19:07 Thanks for listening to this episode of the Clinician Researcher Podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. If you found the information in this episode to be helpful, don't keep it all to yourself. Someone else needs to hear it. So take a minute right now and share it. As you share this episode, you become part of our mission to help launch a new generation of clinician researchers who make transformative discoveries that change the way we do healthcare. Thank you.