94 Evaluation of a grant writing workshop designed to increase submission and award rates for career development awards

Abstract

OBJECTIVES/GOALS: To improve early career faculty members’ NIH grant writing skills, Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) hubs have developed a variety of workshop-style programs. However, few articles have evaluated the impact of grant writing workshops on NIH grant submission and award rates. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: The K Writing program was developed by the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research (MICHR) at the University of Michigan. Since 2012, 435 scholars have participated in the program. The MICHR K Writing program is a three-part workshop series that prepares scholars by providing them with guidelines to write all sections of a career development grant application. Each session focuses on different sections of the K award proposal. During the workshop sessions, participants break into small groups and exchange drafts of their proposal sections and receive peer critique and feedback from senior faculty facilitators who have experience with NIH study sections. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Between 2012-2018, 273 scholars participated and 57% were female. Our two primary outcomes of interest are submission rates and success rates (the number of grants awarded divided by the number of applications). We plan to examine the effects of several characteristics, including number of sessions attended, cohort year, and faculty vs. postdoctoral status. We will also examine whether there were differences in submission and success rates between female and male researchers and between underrepresented minority scholars and those who identified as white or Asian. Lastly, we will report submission and success rates for each grant mechanism and compare them to the national averages. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE: Obtaining external research funding is an important part of a faculty career, especially at its early stages. This research has important implications for the design of similar programs intended to increase submission and success rates for federal grant applications.