Medical research funding has been flat for the last several years. But in reality (that is, when inflation is taken into account), it has actually fallen substantially, up to 30% over 10 years! In this episode, I discuss this issue and it’s effects on science faculty, universities, and health and medical research as a whole.

I got a lot of great comments on my last post about the growing anti-science sentiment. Instead of writing another post, I decided to record my reactions in the First Ever, Science and Grant Podcast!

It’s going to take a few days to get this set up as an actual podcast you can find on iTunes (look for that later in the week), but you can listen to it right here by clicking on the player above.

Some of the questions I respond to are:

• The intersection of Passion and Facts/Logic, and how this relates to our belief systems.
• How to promote the value of your work through communication, outreach, and “marketing”.
• Data driven “truths” and the role of scientists in getting a science message out.

p.s. There are just a few more days left on the 50% OFF deal for 2 of my best Online Grant Writing Courses. If you want to put yourself on a path of success for the next round of submissions, this is a great investment and has never before been offered for this price (and won’t again, anytime soon).

Get the details here. Offer ends Tuesday, April 17th at midnight.

“The anti-science sentiment is entirely the fault of well-funded Koch brothers and people like them.”

I was helping out with the petition to get Obama’s attention on the issue of biomedical research funding.  Amongst the flurry of emails, I got one that said essentially this:

“I’m trying to get people to sign this petition, but some people are pushing back because they’re not really sure of the value of science.”  The email then went on to point to this article that discussed how conservatives have been steadily becoming anti-science, while other groups still thinking science is OK.

That email coincided with another interesting and related event.

I saw a Facebook post by a conservative person that I know.  (Yes, I actually know some conservatives! The horror!)

The mentioned a blog article that was about a woman in Pennysylvania who’d recently had a baby.  She’d intended to have that baby with a midwife at home, but the midwife couldn’t make it in time due to the speed at which the woman went into labor, so she called an ambulance.  So she had the baby in the hospital parking lot, inside the ambulance.

Doctors took the baby from her.  They made excuses for why they weren’t returning the baby.  Then, finally they told her this: we’ll return the baby, but first you have to authorize a Hepatitis B shot. The woman says to them: um, no, I want to have my husband here, and baby should be tested for Hep B first, to see whether the baby is even at risk.

At that point, a clueless hospital social worker called the police, confiscated the baby (WTF??!?!), and ejected the woman from the hospital.  The “reasoning” (if you can call it that) is that the woman wasn’t properly looking out for the welfare of the child by authorizing the Hep B shot.  So, the rationale goes, the child needs to be taken care of by authorities.  Obviously they’ll be better at caring for this child than a mother that refuses a Hep B shot!  She must be totally off her rocker!

The mom was allowed to come back in to feed the child every three hours, but had to sleep in the car.  After childbirth.

The next day a judge said WTF?!? and released the baby back to parents.  After the hospital had already given the Hep B shot, against parental wishes. So there!

What’s this story got to do with the petition, science, and biomedical funding? They’re linked in an important way.  But one more story, before we bring it all together here.

As I write this post, I’m on a plane, headed back from Mississippi.  It’s the poorest state in the union.  I was there helping them out with a program that is designed to get more underrepresented groups into biomedical research.

I heard stories like this: “When we first started the program, many of the colleges didn’t even have a basic science lab.  We had to beg and plead with administrators to get them to consider sparing space for this.  The kids who participate in our summer research programs often have never seen a pipette before.  They don’t know how to dress for work, don’t know how to do a Google search, don’t understand even the most basic elements of doing research.  And, there are some entire counties here that don’t even have a single MD!”

The efforts of these folks to develop more MD’s and scientists is laudable.  It’s a big uphill battle.

So, back to the first email.  After that email came, I made a point-in-response.  The point was this: we scientists need to take some responsibility for the anti-science trends.  We need to become better at communicating about and doing outreach for science.  If we don’t do that, then the anti-science trend is going to continue.

In a series of quippy emails that followed, one person kept saying: no, there is ZERO blame on the part of scientists for this situation.  This is ALL the fault of well-funded, anti science interests like the Koch brothers.  It is all due to these people who want to strangle science because it gets in the way of industry, by bringing up pesky issues like climate change. They are well funded, and it’s the only reason for the trend against science now.  Let’s not take responsibility, let’s fight.

No culpability.  No admittance that we scientists could be doing a better job.  Only finger pointing. “It’s THEIR fault! They’re wrong! We must do away with THEM and their wrongdoing! Then it will all be better!”

The adamance and arrogance of this very superficial opinion by a fellow scientist really startled me.

Here’s why: the two other science-related stories I tell above have nothing to do with the Koch brothers, but everything to do with the anti-science trend.

In the case of the woman whose baby was stolen, it’s simple: there was a clash of beliefs.  The hospital staff believes it is best for everyone, without exception, to have a Hep B shot.  The woman-with-baby believes that a Hep B shot should be given only if absolutely necessary, and is concerned about the risks (there are risks, BTW).  She is part of the growing anti-vaccine movement.  I know several anti-vaccine folks.  Each one of them truly believes that vaccines are dangerous, and that they are doing what’s right for their kids.

We scientists might argue that the facts are on our side, and that kids should be vaccinated. (I vaccinated mine, BTW).  Yet, in the one such debate I’ve heard, the anti-vaccine person was eloquent and passionate, whereas the pro-vaccine scientist (an epidemiologist) was dry and factual.  Guess which person won that debate, by swaying more people to her side?  Yep – the anti-vaccine person.  This is not Koch brothers, this is passion and eloquence versus dry statistics.  Passion and eloquence will win, every time.

And guess what’s going to happen with the story of the mother whose baby was taken away? More fuel for the anti-vaccine fire!  This is the worst possible public relations blunder by the supposedly pro-science hospital that this woman interacted with.

Does this have anything to do with well-funded anti-science people like the Koch brothers?  Nada.

It’s about a clash of beliefs, where one side is eloquent and passionate, and the other side is dry, boring, and authoritarian.

Unfortunately, this clash makes science look bad.

How about the visit to Mississippi?

More than anything, the problem with science there is lack of access. Lack of relevance.  Lack of interest.  Lack of knowledge.  The culture in the many impoverished areas sees no direct impact of science on their lives.

Again, is this due to the Koch brothers or other well-funded anti-science people?  That’s hard to believe unless you’re a tin-foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist.  And if you are the tinfoil type, then let me tell you the real cause: little brown men from Mars!

In seriousness – both of the above cases of things trending away from science, there’s only one antidote.  It’s not going out and doing head-on battle with the Koch’s of the world. That’s impossible, anyway, unless you’re a multi-billionaire.

The real way forward is simple: communicating better about the value and benefit of science.

If that damned hospital social worker had, instead of trying to force the vaccine, done some very effective education and persuasion, the long-term effects on the likelihood of the kid getting vaccines would be greater.  As it is, she probably alienated the parents permanently from visiting hospitals or medical workers, and she gave a rallying cry to others who just don’t trust the science behind vaccines or the workers who administer them.

In Mississippi, the effort I was supporting is all about educating people: getting people from impoverished areas training in the biomedical sciences.  Some of those people have already gone to med school and graduate school.  Many of them have vowed that, once they’re finished, they’ll come back to their communities to help.

This is about education and communication.

Even in the case of “doing battle” with the anti-evolution folks and the climate change deniers, that battle can only be fought with effective words, education, and persuasion.

Unfortunately, a lot of scientists either don’t feel that we have the time for that, and/or we lack training in the effective doing of that.

And that’s where our culpability comes in.  If we want things to change so that the anti-science trend doesn’t continue to erode funding and support for science, then we’ve got to change our ways.

We must become passionate advocates for science.  We have to become vocal and well spoken in support of science.  We have to learn how to “market” the value of science.  

If we don’t admit the problem, and vow to do better, then we will lose. If we point a finger at others, we will loose.

This is not a battle that we can afford to loose.

Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment, and use those little social widgets above to let your friends know.

Cheers!

Recently, I posted a link to a story by the Atlantic over on my Facebook page called “How Your Cat is Making You Crazy.” The article discusses Jaroslav Flegr, a Czech evolutionary biologist who has been studying Toxoplasma gondii, or the brain parasite which can be passed from cats to humans.

But this article isn’t really about that: this article discusses how Flegr and his research haven’t always been taken seriously–in fact, just the opposite. His idea (that T. Gondii actually works to reroute neurons) hasn’t gained much traction, despite sound research.

Science, as a human institution, is far more conservative than it would like to admit. As a group of humans, we fear what is different and new. From Flegr’s wild hair to his “psychedelic” science, he has a hard time getting his well-researched science accepted. As he says in the piece: “There is strong psychological resistance to the possibility that human behavior can be influenced by some stupid parasite,” he says. “Nobody likes to feel like a puppet. Reviewers may have been offended.”

Flegr is just one in a long line of scientists who have challenged conventional thinking–and persisted despite not being taken seriously. It’s a prestigious list which goes back to the days of Galileo and includes Einstein.

So this is my call to you, fellow researchers and scientists: don’t be afraid of offending, of being labeled as ‘crazy.’ If Galileo had done this, the sun may still be thought to be orbiting the Earth. Your passion to create a solid body of research is what moves innovation–and as the educational system breeds this out of us, we need all we can get.

It depends on what your definition of is is… but the white house shut down the biomedical research funding petition with only 10 hours and 446 signatures to go, with signatures coming at 4/minute.  At 2PM. On a Sunday.

Weird.

Maybe it was a typical moronic computer programmed to cut it off at exactly the same time of day that the petition was started.  Or maybe it was a conspiracy by the White House because they knew that if this hit the threshold, they’d actually have to pay attention.

Regardless of the cause, it is a damn shame that the petition was shut down when it was clear we’d hit the target.  Much like running 24 miles of a 25 mile marathon then having the race officials tell you, “oops. our computer says the race is over. sorry.  good work making it 24 miles, though!”

So. Another petition was created.  Please spend a few minutes to sign this one.

Don’t let the White House shut biomedical scientists out.  Don’t let them ignore us.  What scientists do is far more important to the health and wellbeing of the economy and its citizens than Rush Limbaugh’s stupid escapades and other trash like that which gets so much airplay.

Get mad.  Tell your friends and colleagues.  Sign the petition, and then forward this message.

WE WILL NOT BE SHUT OUT!

Thanks for all that you do,

ps – I can see you. You haven’t signed it yet, have you?  I’ll send my toddler army to smother you in Winnie the Pooh dolls if you don’t sign it.  You know what to do.

The message below was forwarded to me by a colleague about the dire funding situation, and in particular, about the lack of understanding that the present Whitehouse/administration/congress has of its effects.  These colleagues have started an official petition via the “We the people” site (sponsored by the Whitehouse), and if this petition gets enough digital signatories, there will be an automatic trigger for the executive branch to consider and respond to this issue “officially.” 

So, if you’re at all concerned about science funding in the US, now’s the time to speak up!  Do you really want politicians continuing to believe that things are just fine?

(Please share this post via Facebook or Twitter using the buttons above, to let your friends and colleagues know about it!)

Here’s the forwarded message from my colleague:

I was on a recent conference call with White House officials, during which research funding was discussed. It seemed to me that these officials did not fully understand the central importance of NIH funding to our national research enterprise, to our local economies, to the retention and careers of our most talented and well-educated people, to the survival of our medical educational system, to our rapidly fading worldwide dominance in biomedical research, to job creation and preservation, to national economic viability, and to our national academic infrastructure. In response to a question from a participant, they staunchly defended the proposed flat $30.7 billion FY 2013 NIH budget as being perfectly adequate, remarking that “The NIH receives more funding than any other research entity; it will continue to be strong; it will do just fine.”

This statement is patently false. The proposed flat NIH budget will severely exacerbate a catastrophic crisis that has been ongoing since 2003, when growth in NIH funding fell (and has continued to fall every subsequent year) behind the rate of inflation. As a consequence of this deeply flawed public policy, promising careers have been cut short, amazing research projects have been aborted, hundreds of laboratories nationwide have shrunk or been shut down, established and accomplished senior researchers have been forced to abandon their programs, young scientists have departed from research of even left the country (even after many years of productive training), thousands of ancillary jobs have been lost, our worldwide medical research dominance has been eroded (ceded to China, India, and other nations), and a large support network of laboratory supply and biotechnology companies has been drastically attenuated.

We successfully rescued the auto industry because we understood the ramifications of letting it fail. Our biomedical research infrastructure is just as far-reaching and vitally important to our nation’s economy as is the auto industry. I hope that our Administration understands this.

In response to this apparent lack of understanding of the current medical research crisis, I started the following petition:

Dear friends,

I write to let you know about a recently created petition on “We the People”, a new feature on WhiteHouse.gov <http://WhiteHouse.gov> , and ask for your support. If this petition gets 25,000 signatures by March 18, 2012, the White House will review it and respond!

We the People allows anyone to create and sign petitions asking the Obama Administration to take action on a range of issues. If a petition gets enough support, the Obama Administration will issue an official response.

“You can view and sign the petition here:

http://wh.gov/R3R (added 2/19/12: this is the new link after the White House shut our other one down with >24,000 signatures and 10 hours to go)

Here’s some more information about this petition:

Increase NIH budget to $33 billion dollars next fiscal year! A flat $30.7 billion will kill jobs and hurt research.

Increase NIH spending to $33 billion! The proposed flat NIH budget will close labs nationwide, kill good-paying jobs, damage our worldwide medical research dominance, and hurt state economies. NIH jobs cannot be outsourced. NIH funding created 350,000 jobs and contributed $50 billion to the national economy in 2007! Insource our jobs!!

Stephen J. Meltzer, M.D.
The Harry & Betty Myerberg/Thomas R. Hendrix Professor
Departments of Medicine (GI Division) and Oncology
The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine & Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center
1503 E. Jefferson Street, Room 112
Baltimore, MD 21287

Please, don’t delay in taking action on this petition!

One of the most difficult jobs I have in teaching people how to write better grants boils down to convincing them of one simple thing:

A grant is not about promoting or pursuing your own interests, it is about promoting and pursuing your funders and reviewers’ interests.

If you are so lucky as to be at a place where you can find the juncture between your interests and reviewer/funder interests, then you’re in the sweet spot.  But most people aren’t.

I have worked with a lot of people on their grants.  I’ve had some stellar successes helping folks – in fact, in the last month I’ve heard from at least three people that credit me for helping them to very good scores on big NIH proposals.

But, I’ve also seen too many good grants fail.  These are grants that are well written and well-planned, but fail to capture the interest and excitement of the reviewers.

Don’t good ideas always come when you’re in the shower, or driving the car?  The other day when I was showering it struck me why many good grants fail: too many people are treating science as a hobby rather than as a career.

Here’s my own distinction between the two:

A hobby is a self-reward-focused endeavor that you get joy out of, but that almost nobody else directly benefits from (or, at least benefit to others is not the core intent, though it could be a byproduct).  You do what you want, when you want to, often whimsically and playfully.  Timeframes are not important, since you’re doing it for fun.

A career is an other-focused endeavor, where you are exchanging your time and effort to serve others, in return for money or other material benefits.  In a career, if you’re not serving others, you won’t succeed for very long (though it always amazes me how many people treat a career like an entitlement). You have to do the service on their timetable and according to their wants, often subsuming your own.  That’s why you’re getting paid, because you’re spending your precious life time and energy in the service of someone else.

I’ll be the first to admit that in a tenured faculty job it is sometimes possible (for a while) to ignore this notion of other-service and nontheless retain the job and the pay.  But in most positions these days, if you do that for long, you’re going to be deemed “replaceable.”

Maybe there was some mythical time when grants were given out to hobbyists to “play” in science.  If there was such a time, I never experienced it firsthand (though I wish I had, it sounds fun!).

But in the present day time, hobbyists have almost no chance.  In your grant proposal, you must be doing something that serves the community-at-large.  You must do something that serves the funder.  You must be doing something that is on their timetable, satisfying their desires and needs – not yours.  In return for that, you get the money.

While more than almost anyone, I would love it if science could be more hobby-like (like it’s portrayed in the movies), it is not.  If you’re going to do grant-supported science, you must treat it as the career that it is.  That means that when it comes to thinking up ideas for your grants (assuming you want them funded), you can’t just propose whatever-you-happen-to-be-interested-in.  You must instead actually think about what-they’re-interested-in, and think about that very deeply.

If, in doing that reflective exercise, you can find something that represents an intersection of your interests and their interests then you can count yourself amongst the lucky few.  But even if you can’t, don’t be deceived.  If you treat it as if it is a hobby (i.e. trying to “sell” a project that comes from a self-centric place rather than an other-centric place), you’re not going to get very far.

Want to learn more about figuring out what they (your funders, reviewers) want? Have a look at my book, Four Steps To Funding.

I get great questions from webinars and emails that give me a chance to illustrate important points about grant writing (I’ve got a webinar happening this Saturday, sign up here).  I just got an email question that brought up an important issue:

Recently, I read a proposal written by a tenured faculty member who recently got her R01 funded. She has a record of getting grants, so, I expected to have my socks blown off by her proposal…. The proposal wasn’t exciting: it didn’t even explain why it was important (although there were TONS of technical details) … So my question is this: how much do other factors (like who writes your letters, what school you came from, whose lab you came from) play into the funding decision? 

My response:

Grants are very much like “marketing”.  You’re trying to “sell” your project to your reviewer and funder.  Given that context, we can analyze this from a marketing perspective.

There are two basic types of marketing: Brand Marketing and Direct Marketing.

Brand Marketing is what you see from big companies, like car companies, soda companies, shoe companies, etc.  Brand Marketing is there to establish a reputation, an image of quality, and a long term relationship.  A company might do this so that when you think “shoes” you think automatically think of a certain company starting with N and ending with E (for example).  That helps them have “perceived value” in what they do (which has to be backed up by real value, i.e. good products, or they’ll loose their brand image over time, despite the marketing).

Direct Marketing is what smaller business must rely upon to get a message out.  They don’t have the budget (or time) to rely on big, expensive, long-term brand building campaigns. A successful small business will go direct-to-consumer with a message, and make the most compelling case possible for the consumer to “buy” what they have to offer.  Over the long haul, they’ll build a “brand” up as well, but it takes a lot of time.

It’s the same (I’m not kidding!) in the grant world.  After someone has been around for a while, and done a good job of establishing their “brand” in a particular area, then they can do a sloppy job of the direct marketing and sometimes get away with it.  As long as their name is recognizable to reviewers, and as long as those reviewers like what they’ve seen, it is a HUGE accelerant.

However, for someone who isn’t an established “brand name”, the accelerant is missing (though there can be a bit of that from the institution you’re at and the mentors you’ve worked with).

In that case, you have only one thing to rely upon: your “direct marketing.” And that’s what your proposal is… a direct marketing piece.  You’re trying to sell a specific audience on a specific idea or project, at a specific point in time…

Since you don’t have a “brand” to back you up, you have to do a far better job of your direct marketing, i.e. writing a killer proposal and having a great project!

I think the senior colleague is relying upon her “brand” to get funded.  The danger is that could dry up at any time.  I’ve had plenty of senior people who come to me for help after 20+ years of regular grant funding, and now suddenly can’t get grants.  The brand just isn’t enough (by itself) anymore.  The proposal has to be fantastic too.

The ultimate combination is to do a fantastic job of the direct marketing, AND building your brand over time.  I’m doing just one more webinar on the how to write a great proposal (and how deal with rejection) – the direct marketing part- so you’ll need to sign up fast.  Then no more webinars on grant stuff for the rest of the Spring.  I’ve got some other fish to fry.

After a recent web seminar I hosted to help people write grants that are more likely to get funded, I got a note from a writer overseas that raised an interesting point about “fundability” and the progress of science (we’ll call him A to preserve anonymity).

He wrote:

THe major point I am raising though refers to the type of science. IN the western society model, incorporating science as one among other activities, the spiral has been closing down and down on the equation “potential applicative outcome=easy funding” Now I am not arguing against the need for new technology and new achievements, but basic science has been the foundation of every possible applicative science, while now the almost desperate need for immediate money leads the investors to neglect, or even worse, to design selection procedures that will specifically leave basic science out of most of the funding schemes.

If you have been working for a lifetime now (I am 53) in basic science and, very sadly, you are still strongly convinced of its value, it is very difficult to pretend to be a different type of scientist to adapt to the various funding strategies/topics.

BAsic science has never had “the brilliant idea that makes a project cool” at least not “a priori” though afterwards it gave us things such as DNA structure and fucntion or cyclin-cdk mechanism for cell cycel progression control, among others. Because it is felt as almost useless nowadays (as if we knew everything almost), it makes it really difficult to build a gap, a contrast, nothing.

Have you elaborated on this aspect? How would one get to the same strategy if the basical “why do we need it” is only very hardly fulfilled, especially considering the balance (money spent vs money income due to the results)?

On a recent webinar about State of Grants in 2012, I mentioned that the personal statement part of the NIH biosketch is a great opportunity to additionally “market” your project. In my experience, most people waste this opportunity by listing a very bland and generic statement.

The most common (ineffective) approach I’ve seen seems to be to just recapitulate the publications and achievements in a narrative format. But that’s not adding any new information, it’s just repeating what’s already in the biosketch.

Instead, you want to tell a story of how your own background intersects with the project at hand. Your narrative should cover key points such as:

- What is the big problem you’re trying to solve (long-term) and why? An example might be that you are interested in developing new diagnostics for cancer because someone you know was affected by it.

- How does your training put you into a great position to do the research at hand, specifically?

- What other strengths do you bring to the project that wouldn’t otherwise be apparent from your lists of positions and qualifications?

As with all good stories, it should begin with the “villain” (problem) that got you into this research, the central challenge of the research, how you came to be in a position to do the research, and the hoped-for outcome.

Some people have asked whether they should list reasons for extended absences or productivity lapses (e.g. maternity leave) or other challenges they’ve faced.

I generally suggest “no” on that. Regardless of whether the reason for the absence is legitimate (I DO think we should be understanding of those who want to raise a family), when it comes to competing for scarce resources, I believe some reviewers will see this as a “weakness” and almost none will see it as a strength. So, on balance the effect is neutral at best, and negative at worst.

The one exception is when the absence or lapse contributes in a clearly positive way to your present ability to do the research being proposed. For example, let’s say you did a sabbatical where you learned a whole new skill set that is relevant to the proposal at hand, but during that time you didn’t get any publications (because you were learning or experiments didn’t work out). I’d still recommend mentioning the absence, but only from the perspective of the strengths that it helps you bring to the table.

While the personal statement may not make a huge difference in your grant’s fundability, it could make the some difference if you’re close to the funding line and need just that extra bit to push you over into the black (that means funded) range.

If you want more advice for spending less time and stress on your grants, and getting better results in 2012, check out the upcoming webinar I’ll be doing for you.