Advice for NIH K Awards: JSM 2022 Roundtable

This blog contains all information from a handout I created for a JSM roundtable discussion about K awards. I mainly focus on K25 awards, which are a little bit different because they are geared for quantitative researchers who are already experts in a quantitative area who are looking to pivot to a new clinical area of application. All advice is my own opinion, and I hope it helps others have some additional information about planning for, writing and submitting a K award. Best of luck!

Planning for a K award

· You need to have publications with your mentors before the grant goes in. And for that matter, you need to have a pretty good publication record for the K25 (other Ks are different) because you have to establish that you are an expert in a quantitative field.

· There are a lot of resources for writing K awards. I attended an NIA webinar that was immensely helpful (they basically told us exactly what they were looking for! Here is the recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZCZXYKPJb8). The ACTS conference also had a lot of good sessions that helped me write mine. And, my university had a K writers workshop series that I did to get it written and reviewed by experienced professors. That was so helpful.

· Submit to an NIH agency that has already funded K25s (not all do, look it up on the NIH reporter website) and make sure this clinical area aligns with your institution’s strengths (I went to NIA because their funding rate of K25s was ~20% and my university has a lot of resources for aging research)

· Ask people you know who have K awards to share their application with you.

· Only go for a K if there is training you need in order to be successful. Otherwise go for an R.

· 75% issue and soft money institutions: Ks are great because it covers a lot of your time for up to 5 years. This is also a downside because after your K ends, you need to get your funding up quickly.

Suggestions for K award content

· Include a figure like this:

· You have to write the research strategy for multiple levels: people who are smart but know nothing about your filed, and experts in your field. This is a hard balancing act.

· In your candidate background/career development section, tell your story. What research have you done in the past and why are you interested in pivoting? Reviewers are looking for a personal touch.

· The next career step that you should say you are working to is submitting an R01 as PI in your 3^rd year of the K. The reviewers want K25 awardees to become independent scientists in the new clinical field.

· You should draft all of the mentor letters of support to ensure that each person highlights different aspects about why you are awesome. Try to write about different things from each person though, so it’s not completely apparent that you wrote it all.

Comments about scoring

· Your mentors should be highly funded, experienced researchers and have lots of experience with previous mentoring (mine all had >20 faculty/postdoc mentees in their careers). Most of your mentors will be outside of your field. Mentor experience and dedication to you/your work is a big score-driving factor.

· Tough balancing act: you have to show how awesome you are, but also argue that you have gaps in your training that protected time/resources from a K can address.

· The research aims aren’t as important as the investment in you and your potential. My resubmission scored perfectly for all aspects except the research plan, which got 2’s, 3’s and one 4. If you aim for perfect in all other categories, you have a bit of wiggle room with the research portion.

· Letters of recommendation: helps to have a famous/very well known person write you a good letter (and of course, you will draft it for them!)