Challenges for research scholars in writing pharmaceutical research grant

In brief:

• Research proposal grant writing is targeted primarily to graduate students and faculties and for research scholars who seek funding for research.
• Research grant writing varies widely across the disciplines from philosophy or the arts to medicine or policy research.
• Writing a successful grant application is a long and challenging process and requires expert’s guidance to secure prestigious funding as they help you develop a quality grant proposal.

Introduction:

Critical thinking, creativity and innovation are the essential factors in carrying out scientific research. Hence, the primary objective of any research is to produce new knowledge and relevant findings leading to sustainable improvement to the needs of society. Research is empirical because of the involvement of serious of observations, measurements and analysis of data based on the well-driven experimental design. Pharmaceutical research is defined as the development of drugs which emphasize the discovery and treatment of diseases. Pharmaceutical scientists discover, develop, test, and manufacture new medications. A significant and innovative research question is the first and primary ingredient in a successful proposal. The research proposal or academic writing is to assist in developing a strong fundamental understanding of developing pharmaceutical study design/protocol and communicate the finding for future development. Research grant writing helps in getting funds quickly from the funding agency, and it is highly competitive in securing a prestigious grant for doing pharmaceutical research.

Challenges during the phase of writing a research grant proposal:

1. Identifying your needs and brainstorm idea:

First, the identifying question that needs to be focused and developing ideas should be clearly explained, along with alternative methods and plans. Ideas should satisfy the need of the hour. Concepts should not be too ambitious, and technology driven. Lack of proof and low impact is a big deal.

• Innovation:

Innovations are critical and must be without controversy, which is questionable. It should contain novel concepts, approaches and methods

• Time:European Research Council (ERC),

It takes time to write everything together, which convinces the reader. The proposal must be uncompetitive and non-compliant. Outline the whole proposal clearly before you start writing and explain science clearly. Use concise and clear language.

• Hypotheses: 

Hypotheses should give insight into a research question. Be testable and measurable by the proposed research methodology. Consistency while describing the predictions must be maintained.

• Research design:

This section should provide details of planned methods to carry out experiments, and the supporting explanation should need to justify the selected method is appropriated along with references.

• Presentation:

Unclear format and incorrect citing lead to denial. The proposal should clearly state the problem or hypothesis by avoiding language errors and clarity problems.

• Preliminary studies:

Challenging to incorporate the results of preliminary studies need to be focused like not providing enough data that is mandatory and providing data which is not stable. Poorly presented data are difficult to follow and conclude results by providing too many details of auxiliary methods.

• Budget:

Remember the budget limitations and understand the budget size, which will influence the score. Include all other sources of funding for the proposed study and justify all categories of funds requested. Researchers that do not have a sound working knowledge of statistics need to have a consultation with a biostatistician to ensure the procedures which required sampling, data collection and data analysis are scientifically valid.  Reviewers can recommend budget cuts when they think that expenses are overly high or unwarranted. The budget must accurately reflect the plan for data collection, data analysis, and data write up.

Revising the grant proposal:

Developing a grant proposal is a time taking process and challenging for early researchers as it requires quality experience in pharmaceutical research for providing accurate details. Every proposal must pass through several readers to get feedback from both pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical specialists to know the drawbacks and area of improvement. Since it takes a lot of time, Pubrica offers grant proposal reviewing and has expertise to complete a quality and high standard research grant proposal in no time.

In summary, connecting goals, objectives, and hypothesis is a big task to the research scholars as it can be solved by framing the research problems and developing the hypotheses properly. The author should know the nature of the funding agencies and must follow their instructions and proposal guidelines properly. Besides, they must know their audience, readers mission and accomplishment and most importantly, the author must analyze the assessment criteria for funding by using the appropriate disciplinary concepts and methods. Describing the purpose of the proposal is to discuss all relevant aspects of the research process, and it can provide new opportunities which can serve as your steppingstones. In addition, the research proposal writing should have concern over the proper page limit, word limit and budget limit. The proposed research grant should have appropriate abstract and reference format and need to make sure that the abstract clearly explains the proposed project and emphasizes why it is essential.

To overcome all the challenges and complete writing a standard and quality research grant proposal, our experts are available to support and assist our client in pharmaceutical research as well as in all therapeutic areas and engineering fields. We have experience in writing research proposal for National Institutes of Health, Human Frontier Science Program, European Research Council (ERC), Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP), National Science Foundation (NSF), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), Wellcome Trust, and National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). Besides, we have a strong team to support our client with any customized service like budget planning, reviewing research grant and suggestions from our top experts.

Reference:

1. Gerard H.Koppelman, John W.Holloway, Successful grant writing, Paediatric Respiratory Reviews Volume 13, Issue 1, March 2012, Pages 63-66.
2. Otto O Yang, Guide to Effective Grant Writing: How to Write a Successful NIH Grant application, Springer New York Heidelberg Dordrecht London.
3. Porter, Robert, Why Academics Have a Hard Time Writing Good Grant Proposals, Journal of Research Administration, v38 n2 p37-43.
4. Georges Bordage  Beth Dawson, Experimental study design and grant writing in eight steps and 28 questions, Medical Education/Volume 37, Issue 4.
5. Jamie Dow Chevis Shannon, Grants and Funding Sources, A Guide to the Scientific Career: Virtues, Communication, Research and Academic Writing.