Research Grants

Source: https://github.com/aipoch/medical-research-skills

When to Use

Use this skill when you need to produce or revise a grant application that must meet strict agency rules and reviewer expectations, for example:

1. Preparing a new submission to NSF, NIH, DOE, DARPA, or Taiwan’s NSTC in response to a specific solicitation/FOA/BAA.
2. Drafting core narrative sections (NSF Project Description, NIH Research Strategy, DARPA Technical Volume, DOE Project Narrative, NSTC CM03).
3. Building agency-specific “value” sections, such as NSF Broader Impacts, NIH Significance/Innovation, or DARPA transition and milestone narratives.
4. Creating a compliant budget + justification aligned to scope, timeline, and agency constraints (e.g., NIH modular budgets, DARPA phase/task budgets).
5. Resubmitting after reviews, including structured responses to critiques (especially NIH A1) and targeted strengthening of weak criteria.

Key Features

• Agency-aware structure and compliance

  • NSF: Intellectual Merit + Broader Impacts, typical 15-page Project Description norms
  • NIH: Specific Aims + Significance/Innovation/Approach framing, rigor/reproducibility expectations
  • DOE: office-dependent emphasis (Office of Science, ARPA-E, EERE), partnerships/cost-share where applicable
  • DARPA: high-risk/high-reward framing, measurable milestones, transition pathways, phased execution
  • NSTC (Taiwan): CM03-centered technical narrative, bilingual abstract expectations, feasibility emphasis

• Review-criteria-driven writing

  • Maps every major claim to what reviewers score (or discuss) and what program staff prioritize.

• Budget-to-scope alignment

  • Ensures personnel effort, equipment, travel, subawards, and indirects match the workplan and schedule.

• Milestones, timeline, and management planning

  • Produces Gantt-style schedules, go/no-go criteria, deliverables, and risk mitigation (especially important for DARPA/DOE).

• Mandatory visual communication workflow

  • Every proposal should include at least 1–2 diagrams (e.g., workflow, conceptual framework, timeline). Use the scientific-schematics skill to generate publication-quality figures.

• Reference-driven drafting

  • Leverages the repository’s detailed guides as needed:
    • references/nsf_guidelines.md
    • references/nih_guidelines.md
    • references/doe_guidelines.md
    • references/darpa_guidelines.md
    • references/nstc_guidelines.md
    • references/specific_aims_guide.md
    • references/broader_impacts.md
    • references/budget_preparation.md
    • references/review_criteria.md
    • references/timeline_planning.md
    • references/team_building.md
    • references/resubmission_strategies.md

Dependencies

• Python: 3.10+ (recommended)
• Optional local scripts (repository-provided):
  • scripts/compliance_checker.py (format checks)
  • scripts/budget_calculator.py (budget math support)
  • scripts/deadline_tracker.py (planning support)
  • scripts/generate_schematic.py (diagram generation wrapper; used with scientific-schematics)

Note: Exact third-party Python package requirements are not specified in the source document. If you maintain this skill repository, add a requirements.txt (with pinned versions) and list them here.

Example Usage

The example below is a complete, runnable workflow that (1) generates required visuals, (2) drafts core sections, and (3) performs basic compliance checks using the included scripts.

1) Generate required diagrams (minimum 1–2)

# Conceptual framework / workflow diagram
python scripts/generate_schematic.py \
  "Conceptual workflow for a 3-aim biomedical project: Aim 1 data collection -> Aim 2 model development -> Aim 3 validation; include feedback loop and key deliverables" \
  -o figures/workflow.png

# Timeline / milestones diagram (recommended)
python scripts/generate_schematic.py \
  "Gantt chart for a 3-year project with quarterly milestones; include go/no-go at end of Year 1 and deliverables per aim" \
  -o figures/timeline.png

2) Draft an NIH-style proposal skeleton (Specific Aims + Strategy)

Create proposal.md:

# Project Title
Mechanistic and Translational Study of X to Enable Y

## NIH Specific Aims (1 page target)
**Knowledge gap:** ...
**Long-term goal:** ...
**Objective:** ...
**Central hypothesis:** ...

**Aim 1 (verb-led):** ...
- Rationale:
- Approach (high level):
- Expected outcomes:

**Aim 2:** ...
**Aim 3:** ...

**Impact:** If successful, this work will ...

## Research Strategy (12 pages target for R01)

### Significance
- Problem and barrier to progress:
- Why now / why this team:
- Expected impact on health/biology:

### Innovation
- Conceptual innovation:
- Methodological innovation:
- Why current approaches are insufficient:

### Approach
#### Overview and rationale
#### Aim 1 Methods
- Design:
- Data:
- Analysis:
- Pitfalls and alternatives:
#### Aim 2 Methods
...
#### Aim 3 Methods
...

### Rigor and Reproducibility (as applicable)
- Controls, replicates, blinding/randomization:
- Power/statistics:
- Data management and sharing:

3) Run a basic formatting/compliance check (if available)

python scripts/compliance_checker.py proposal.md

4) Produce a budget justification draft (outline)

Create budget_justification.md:

# Budget Justification (Draft)

## Personnel
- PI (X% effort): ...
- Postdoc (100%): ...
- Graduate student (50%): ...

## Equipment
- Item: purpose, necessity, and timing

## Travel
- Conference dissemination
- Collaboration meetings

## Materials and Supplies
- Consumables / software licenses

## Other Direct Costs
- Publication fees / participant incentives / consultants

## Subawards (if any)
- Scope and deliverables per partner

## Indirect Costs (F&A)
- Rate and base per institutional policy

Implementation Details