NEUROLOGY FACULTY DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP SERIES:

1. NEUROLOGY FACULTY DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP SERIES: “Development of a Basic Research Program”

2. Key Elements that Facilitate Success • Be in a supportive and collaborative environment • Develop an efficient mentoring team devoted to your success • Take the lead of your own research program development • Develop a network of research colleagues and mentors with whom you can exchange, collaborate and share common career goals • Demonstrate your independence as an investigator and a future leader in your field. Find a research niche that will allow you to thrive and stand above the crowd. Must have some solid papers as first or last author from your own lab at the time of NIH grant submission (R01). • Develop a strategic funding plan. Identify funding opportunities. Prioritize them. Discuss your funding strategy with mentors.

3. Build your Research Team • Who to bring in my research team?? Students, postdocs, technicians?? How do I prioritize those?? • What about undergraduates??? Balance time commitment towards training vs output from students. Be realistic about the project you engage them in. The undergraduate NBB program has a pool of outstanding highly motivated students. But, you must have a plan to train and get the best out of these students. Without training, it may be a waste of time for you and the student. • Join a graduate program (need funds to pay the student) that meets your research interests. Make sure graduate students know about you. Be involved in the program in a reasonable way. Give a seminar to first and second year students part of the graduate programs you have joined. • If possible, inquire about giving a lecture or 2 in core courses offered to first year students in the program so that they know you and your interests. • How do I bring a postdoc in my lab as a junior faculty with limited mentoring experience??

4. Develop your Research Proposal • Take advantage of any resources to help improve your grant writing skills. • Grant writing classes, services, inputs from colleagues etc… • Discuss ideas/aims of your proposal with mentors/colleagues many months before the due date of your proposal. The more inputs you get, the better and more refined your application will be. • Movement Disorders group-Grant proposal discussion. Very useful. Would hope all Divisions could offer similar opportunities. • Devote as much time as needed on the Aims page to make it cohesive, exciting and accessible to a broad audience of neuroscientists. Have it read and re-read by experts and non-experts in your field. • Make sure to have enough preliminary data to demonstrate the feasibility and likelihood of success of your proposal. • Do not be over-ambitious. Make sure your work can be done with the time frame of the grant (ie 4-5 years)

5. The Main Grant Killers in Study Sections • Lack of confidence that the PI has the needed track record, independence and training background to achieve the proposed studies. Great science rarely overcomes low investigator ranking?? • In case of K awards, poorly designed mentoring plan. You need to describe it in great details. Lack of clear Departmental and institutional support. • Poor grantsmanship- Project difficult to read and understand for non-experts in the field. Your story must be accessible and exciting for a broad range of neuroscientists, not just experts in your field. • Lack of rigor and depth in the study design, control experiments, statistical analyses. • Lack of attention to details-Sloppiness in overall presentation of the proposal, many typographical errors, many minor errors throughout the proposal, low quality of images showing preliminary data, etc….

6. How do I become and Efficient Mentor for Members of my Research Team?? • Take advantage of Resources available at Emory and outside to improve your mentoring skills • If you join a graduate program at Emory, attend series of workshops on mentoring offered by the Atlanta Society of Mentors (now a requirement for all new GDBBS faculty) • Seek advice from your senior colleagues or mentorswho are experienced and successful in mentoring trainees • Be flexible in your mentoring style. Trying to apply the same mentoring style to everyone can be problematic. Each trainee has their own personality, background, goals, needs. You must assess those and adjust your mentoring style to get the best out of each individual. One mould does not fit all. • Once you commit yourself towards mentoring someone, you must take it responsibly and devote all necessary time and effort needed towards the success of this relationship. • Be patient!! Some mentees may need more time that you would like to move forward and be productive in the lab. • Find the proper level of micro-management needed for each individual under your supervision. • Be a committed leader/mentor to everyone in your team!!! Good leadership can make a real difference in getting the best out of your mentees.

7. Resources • School of Medicine Workshops on Grant Writing: https://med.emory.edu/about/faculty/faculty-development/research/index.html • CTSA Grant writing support (Janet Gross): http://medicine.emory.edu/research/internal-research-resources/grant-resources/proposal-development.html • Atlanta Society of Mentors: http://www.atlantamentors.org/ • Department of neurology website-Faculty Development: http://neurology.emory.edu/faculty/faculty.development/grant.writing.resources.html • National Grant writing Resources: https://study.com/articles/List_of_Free_Grant_Writing_Courses_and_Training_Programs.html