PROJECT GRANTS
2018 Round
NHMRC APPLICATIONS
Michael Gradisar – School of Psychology
Background
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Assistant Chair, Panel 3E, Microbiology & Virology
I don’t know much about bugs and fungi (but I learned a lot)
There were two Microbiology & Virology panels
After ‘Not For Further Consideration’ (NFFC), our panel
assessed 71 Project Grant applications across 5 days.
 Panel consisted of Chair, A/Chair, Secretary, and ~11 panel
members (some repeat Panel members). Some ‘rising stars’
(post-docs) but mostly ‘top notch’ experts
 On occasion, ECRs and RAOs would sit in and observe.
Reviewing applications
 Basic details announced by Chair, including if ECR, career
disruptions, CoIs, and up-to-date scores of each category by
each Spokesperson (both spokespeople are often close in their
scores).
 Spokesperson 1 provides a ‘several-minute summary’ of your
application, often going through each category, and outlining
pros and cons.
 Spokesperson 2 provides a ‘few-minute summary’ of the
Assessors’ comments and pros and cons of your rebuttal.
 Your review is then open to comments to the panel for a few-toseveral minutes.
 When panel ready to score, members asked if anyone will score
2 or more points away from Spokesperson 1.
Reviewing applications (continued)
 When all panel member scores are entered, the Secretary
announces the overall score.
 If score is over 5, then this triggers a ‘budget discussion’ (usually
takes a couple-to-a-few minutes)
 If the application is by an ECR, then an overall score of 4.5
triggered a budget discussion
 Approximately 1 in every 2 applications had a budget
discussion.
Scientific Quality
 Need pilot data!
 Common application had 3 aims/studies, and the first two had
good/convincing pilot data
 Shows a ‘line of research’, and that you need funding to prove
the rest of your proposed research.
 Make aims clear, valid, and interesting
 Aim for a lucid, well-written background
 Use models to support your aims and hypotheses.
 An excellent scientific quality section can lift an application into
the funding zone (eg, ECR + expert application scored v.well
because of outstanding scientific quality score).
Significance and Innovation
 Aim for ‘sideways crazy’
 That is, aim for a ‘large leap forward’ as opposed to an
‘incremental step’.
 For Panel 3E, good/novel mouse models or techniques were
evidence for innovation.
 At the end of reviewing all applications, the panel is asked to
nominate one application that was extremely novel. Even if this
application did not receive an overall high score, it could be
considered for funding.
Track Record
 7s were extremely rare.
 Even if a person had a track record that looked like they did not
have weekends, they still got a 6.
 Panel members rated track record by the prestige of the journals
published in – for Microbiology & Virology, the top journals
mentioned were Nature, Science, PLOS Pathogens, Cell and
PNAS. Multiple publications in top journals attracted a 5 or 6
score.
 Need plenty of first-named and senior authorships.
 Track record relative to opportunity is taken into account. Read
rules around career disruption vs interruption.
 Can mention number of hours spent teaching (but not a career
disruption/interruption).
Budgets
 Panel members are researchers and understand how the
research is to be conducted and how much things cost
 If you ‘pad out’ your budget, it will be cut.
 Aim for modest Direct Research Costs (DRCs)
 Your research costs, and project duration should be well justified
(eg, a whole year of funding can be wiped out if the panel
believe a 4-year project can be done in 3 years).
 The panel receive ongoing indicators of how much the budget is
being cut – and the panel members care about whether the
research can be performed.
 The Chair will finalise the budget discussion by asking for any
reservations to any items, and the overall budget.
General Points
 Prepare your track record, years ahead of your application
 Have good pilot data (the better the pilot data, the more
‘confidence’ the panel have in the project)
 Keep referring back to the Category Descriptors (the panel
members will)
 The panel members can Google your research and the research
of others within the 30-min review of your application (ie, has
this project been done before)
 Avoid fishing expeditions
 Panel members primarily responsible for applications (ie,
Spokesperson 1 or 2) will read your application 4 to 6 times,
including the night before it is to be reviewed by the panel.
General Points (continued)
 The Rebuttal is very important.
 Quality of the rebuttal can change initial scores (in either
direction)
 Do not:
 ignore the Assessor comments,
 focus more on the Spokesperson’s comments,
 debate comments if valid arguments are raised,
 Adequately answering the Assessor comments can retain your
initial scores – even raise them.
 There can be a preference for addressing Assessor comments
in order
 Don’t waste time thanking Assessors.
 Do not leave whitespace.