Winning the
NIH Grant Game

A hands-on intensive designed to help researchers in the social, behavioral, and medical sciences conceptualize and write an R01. Invest in your grantsmanship and earn that coveted NIH R01 Notice of Award!!

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Instructor:
Alex Burt, PhD (Michigan State University)

Workshop Format:
Multi-Day Flipped Online Workshop

Workshop Dates and Times:
June 18, 2026 (10am to 3pm ET)
July 2, 2026 (10am to 12:30pm OR 2pm to 4:30pm ET)
July 16, 2026 (10am to 12:30pm OR 2pm to 4:30pm ET)

Video Availability:
Didactic Videos are Available Now!

Winning an R01 grant from the NIH is both a career-defining achievement and, for many of us, a necessary part of maintaining an active program of research. Despite the looming and outsized role of NIH R01 grants in our professional success, very few graduate and post-doctoral training programs provide sufficient mentorship on the specific grantsmanship skills required to secure them. Writing a grant is very different from writing a paper – the skills for one do not generalize to the other, as they have entirely different goals.

This workshop aims to fill this gap, providing you with both explicit training in NIH grantsmanship AND actionable feedback to improve your current ideas and Specific Aims. Learning experiences will include a series of asynchronous didactic videos, comprehensive self-directed, and live activities designed to develop your R01 idea(s), Aims, and Strategy, multiple opportunities for peer review, and individualized feedback from the instructor.

What you’ll learn

  • How to develop a fundable grant idea – Not all of your best scientific ideas are equally fundable. Learn how to narrow in on those ideas most likely to result in a Notice of Award.

  • How to draft Aims that pop – Your Aims are a high-stakes elevator pitch. They need to sizzle. You have only one page to make a compelling case for the importance of the work and the clear gap(s) in knowledge it will fill, all while reassuring reviewers on feasibility and rigor. I will share the tips and tricks I have learned (through hard-won personal experience!) to smooth your path.

  • How to ‘wow’ reviewers in the Strategy – The Significance section is where your grant will live or die in Reviewers’ eyes. Reviewers need to be convinced that your work not only fills key scientific/intervention gaps but does so rigorously and with major public health significance. I will share a winning formula, honed over the last two decades in my own work, to help your grant rise to the top of the pack.

Syllabus

Several asynchronous videos, including:

  1. Organization of the NIH as it relates to you

  2. What makes a grant fundable? Key elements of a winning formula

  3. The basics of Specific Aims

  4. A winning structure for the Specific Aims, in concrete and actionable steps

  5. Weaving your Strategy

  6. A step-by-step approach to crafting a compelling Significance section

  7. Structuring the Strategy around the Aims

  8. Your secret weapon: the Potential Problems and Possible Solutions section

Comprehensive Self-Directed Activities

  1. Moving from ‘Rocky Road’ to multiple ‘Vanilla with caramel sauce’ ideas

  2. Developing your hook

  3. Narrative versus hypothesis-driven aims

  4. Outlining and developing each of the three core paragraphs in the Importance of the Problem and Knowledge to be Gained section

  5. Building out the core arguments in your Scientific Premise

  6. Hitting your potential problems head on

Day 1 synchronous full-day meeting

  1. In-person activities, including review and discussion of some of the Instructor’s own ideas (funded and unfunded) and Aims

  2. Answering questions from the asynchronous materials

  3. Discussion of each other’s grant ideas

Day 2 synchronous half-day meeting

  1. Peer review of an early draft of each other’s Aims

  2. Receive individualized feedback on your ideas/Aims

Day 3 synchronous half-day meeting

  1. Peer review of a revised draft of each other’s Aims

  2. Receive individualized feedback

Registration Options

Winning the NIH Grant Game

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 FAQs

  • Suitable for both beginner or intermediate grant writers thinking about submitting an R01 to the NIH

  • Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced

  • Attendees need not have any experience submitting NIH R01 grants, although the workshop will be just as useful to those who have submitted but not yet been funded (or been funded only once).

    Given the focus on both peer and instructor review in our three synchronous meeting days, enrollment is tightly capped!

  • Microsoft PowerPoint and Word; Zoom

  • Participants will receive individualized feedback from the instructor, peer review, and access to the asynchronous materials for a full year, along with the slides. The videos will be hosted automatically and password protected on the SMaRT website.

  • Given the focus on both peer and instructor review in our three synchronous meeting days, enrollment is tightly capped. Enrollment will be done a first come, for serve basis!