Got an idea for a big research project? Don’t wait for the perfect call for proposals.
Is it immoral to let big research ideas languish?
James Watson certainly thought so. He said this when groups were consolidating around the concept of the Human Genome Project:
“It is essentially immoral not to get it [the human genome sequence] done as fast as possible.”
Since the Human Genome Project, big research ideas are increasingly common thanks in no small part to the exponential increase in understanding ushered in by the Human Genome Project.
Big research ideas are plentiful, ways to make them a reality are scarce.
Like sequencing the human genome, most big research ideas in the life sciences require meaningful collaboration between multiple disciplines. In other words, they require a consortium like the Human Genome Project.
But how do you get a consortium started?
This is a difficult question that often comes up. My typical reply previously was that the first step is to find a suitable funding organization with an open call for proposals that is relevant to what you want to work on. But I now believe that is the wrong place to start.
When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
If you have a concept for a consortium project and you go looking for a relevant call topic text, you run the risk of being overly optimistic about the degree to which a call topic fits your interest.
If you pick a call topic without fully appreciating the intricacies of the call text, you might try to wedge the capabilities of you and your partners into a call text that is not exactly right.
A consortium project is a complex endeavor.
Just the fact that you have to create a project that has both scientific and societal impact is a difficult challenge. Making it more difficult by having to shape your work to fit the currently open call topics is a handicap that will be difficult to overcome.
What is the alternative?
One thing I have noticed over the years is that it is infinitely easier to know which call topics are best and much easier to form the concept for a consortium project when there is an existing consortium or community in some shape or form. It is easier because the relationships have been formed and if things are going well, it is easier to think together and evaluate a call topic.
But what if you do not have an existing consortium? Or you are engaged in a consortium, but now want to lead your own consortium?
After more than 17 years of experience, I have a deep appreciation of the challenge of how to form a consortium when there are no relevant call topics.
At one point, I started to encourage people to join together proactively and form consortium projects and then pursue multiple funding opportunities.
In principle, that sounded like a great idea to most people. However, when it came down to forming the pro-forma project, people would not show up or there would be a minimal level of participation.
Even in the cases where it seemed to work somewhat and we had at least formed a starting concept, it was only when a fitting call topic was published that the interest suddenly increased. The interest was welcomed, but it often meant that the concept had to be reworked, which felt like a lot of redundant effort. It was like, where were you when we were discussing this a month ago?
Nothing focuses the mind like a published call topic.
Proactive consortium development did not work like I thought it should, but there is an alternative.
The alternative
More recently, I helped develop a proposal for a Marie Curie Doctoral Network. Halfway through that effort, which was being done under a highly compressed timeline, it dawned on me that doctoral networks are great precursor projects.
The Marie Curie doctoral network call for proposal is completely bottom-up, meaning that there is no pre-specified scientific concept.
This means you don’t have to wedge your science into the goals and objectives of an off-topic call topic text.
While DNs are primarily about setting up a training network, you are also required to define a coherent research program.
The DN call provides an opportunity to build a consortium project without having to wait for the perfect call topic.
At the same time, like a published specific call topic, developing a doctoral network proposal will certainly focus the minds of everyone involved.
The other unique feature of Marie Curie DNs is that to be successful, you have to include industrial partners. This requirement opens the door to other sources of funding.
The Innovative Health Initiative (IHI) is explicitly a public-private partnership program. We also know that there is the opportunity to have industry funding for research.
So, if you find yourself needing to form a consortium and there is no call topic that is an eye-watering fit for what you want to do, a doctoral network grant is a good place to start.
Then the question becomes what’s the first step.
How do you start?
Developing a consortium project unfolds best as a series of iterative development steps.
A key concept I use in collaborative proposal development is the use of scaffolding.
In construction, scaffolding is a temporary structure that allows you to reach heights so that you can work on what you are building.
In proposal development, scaffolding serves a similar purpose. However, in collaborative writing, scaffolding takes different forms.
First, it is a structured framework upon which you can engage in a dialogue with partners and stakeholders.
In the first step of the proposal development process, concept development, we make use of two primary forms of scaffolding: the problem map and the pathway to impact.
Having a discussion about the problems that need to be solved and what problems can be solved is helpful for aligning the different partners. It also stimulates thinking about initial solutions.
While the discussion is meant to focus on the problems, their causes, effects, and consequences, people often bring up potential solutions. The goal is to capture all of these ideas and structure them into a coherent problem map.
PROBLEM MAP: A form of scaffolding that can help a group to work together to have a common view on problems and begin to think about solutions.
With the problem map in hand, the next step is to understand the desired impact.
Impact can be a difficult concept to grasp, so it is often put off until the end when most of the proposal is written.
However, this approach is inefficient.
It is better to begin with the impact in mind.
To simplify the idea of “impact,” think about what will be different in the future. What change will happen that the project and its outputs will contribute to?
It’s important not to think of impact as something that will necessarily be achieved within the project’s timeframe.
Most projects end long before their impact is realized. In fact, the definitions included in the Horizon Europe proposal template now explicitly recognize this fact.
Impact is considered “long-term,” while outcomes are intermediate-term, and outputs are what you deliver during the project.
To address this aspect, the next step is to brainstorm together about the most important change that should occur in the field of interest.
This is one aspect of developing a bottom-up doctoral network proposal. Instead of having to conform to sometimes impossibly worded expected impact and expected outcome statements you find in the call text, you are free to develop the impact that makes the most sense.
Of course, it has to be an important impact, ideally something that addresses or resolves an unmet need.
IMPACT PATWHAY: This is part of the theory of change approach that allows a group to think about impact and the link to project outputs in a more clear way.
Once the impact is decided by the group, you can then move from right to left and define the outcomes that would lead to the desired impact.
When those outcomes are defined, you can then think with the group about the outputs that will be delivered by your funded doctoral network.
One important consideration for a Doctoral Network is to also think about and include training impact.
The project should aim to change something about the way training is conducted. It is best to think about different types of impacts: scientific, societal, technological/economical, and training.
Therefore, you are likely to need multiple iterations of the impact pathway over multiple discussion sessions.
The advantage of this approach is that it not only helps you align with the partners and stakeholders involved, but it also leads to the development of ideas and concepts that you may not have otherwise come up with.
It also helps identify connections between what may initially seem like disparate aspects of a consortium project. This is particularly true for connections between the scientific and training aspects, which is important in DNs.
When unexpected connections emerge, the project becomes more exciting. It will not only be exciting for you as a consortium but also for the reviewer, as it helps them perceive the novelty of the project you are proposing.
Once you have a problem map and an impact pathway, you are ready to draft the initial version of your proposal.
The problem map becomes the introduction section. You can follow a simple format:
What are the problems that need to be addressed?
Why haven’t they been addressed to date?
Why are you able to address these problems now?
How are you going to address them?
What will be different in the future as a result of the project?
The last question can be tricky.
One mistake I see made all the time is that people want to provide all the detail in the introductory section, but that can be very confusing to the reviewers. They first need a high-level overview of what you are going to do before you hit them with details. A proposal is about layering on the detail with each section. It is somewhat the same story over and over again.
Objectives are an excellent way to provide such an overview provided that you keep them as objectives. They are not a summary of the tasks or work packages, and they are not exactly the outcomes. They are what the project is going to achieve that will influence the outcomes that lead to impact.
An objective can be something like “Identify biomarkers, or increase our understanding of”. It could also be something like “generate sufficient evidence to justify clinical trials using a personalized approach.”
Once you have the objectives written, you can combine the introductory text with your impact pathway as a starting document.
This document then becomes your scaffolding for subsequent development of your proposal.
The process should from here on out be developed in a series of iterations of the version of the proposal gathering feedback as you go from your partners.
By following this process, you can develop the concepts that will underpin your consortium project and lay a strong foundation for its success. Remember to incorporate the insights gained from discussions and to iterate on your ideas as you progress through the different phases.
If you do this well, you can proactively form a research program concept and the consortium long before any call topics are published, and you can always submit to the Marie Curie DN call on a yearly basis.
Want to learn more about building consortium projects?
I am planning on putting together a workshop where we will go deeper into the process described above as well as outlining the blueprint of the entire consortium project proposal development process.
So, I would like to know who would be interested in such a workshop. Please let me know your interest by filling out this simple form.
