Steve Freedman, MD, PhD, vividly remembers his first NIH grant application 35 years ago. When he had a solid draft, he asked his mentor at the time to review it. By Freedman’s account, the mentor looked at him like he had two heads, explaining that’s not how it works.

The interaction left a mark. A couple decades later, GRASP, the Grant Review and Support Program, was born. Today, GRASP enrollees have a whopping 52% success rate for their independent research grants being funded, far exceeding the national average.

In addition to directing GRASP as part of Harvard Catalyst’s Education program, Freedman is chief of the Division of Translational Research, director of clinical research, and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS). He also directs the Pancreas Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC).

When we caught up with him, he had just returned from a weekend with more than a thousand  students, high school through postdoc, at the Biomedical Career Science Program and New England Science Symposium.

What was the impetus for developing the GRASP program in 2011, when you co-directed the original Clinical Translational Science Award (CTSA) to HMS?

We had had the grant for a couple of years, and I wanted to carve out something that would be transformative for researchers. And what do you need to do research? You need money. Getting grants is a very Darwinian process: Ether you’re successful and can have a research career, or you’re not successful and your research career is for the most part over.

Harvard University is vast. Many people apply for a grant and don’t get it. We thought about this and deduced that getting an NIH K award would be a minimum bar, because it shows you have sufficient publications to successfully compete for a grant application and the right mentoring environment, for example. Still, we know that the majority of people with an NIH K award never make it from there to their first independent R01 or equivalent grant. We wanted to fix that. So, in collaboration with Bethany Bramhavar, who is now senior associate director, Career Development Programs, we came up with GRASP.

“There are many grant writing courses out there, but no one actually helps project manage the whole experience. We’re the only longitudinal program that is with you from the moment you decide to write a grant application to developing one that will likely be funded.”

There are many grant writing courses out there, but no one actually helps project manage the whole experience. We’re the only longitudinal program that is with you from the moment you decide to write a grant application to developing one that will likely be funded. Do you understand the whole process? What are tips and tricks you wish mom had taught you about getting funded?

How does GRASP fill those gaps researchers wish their mom had taught them?

Three components seem to be key, with the driving theme of “let’s work with you.” The first component is a series of workshops that go beyond the nuts and bolts of writing a grant application. Very few people understand how grant applications are reviewed. If you don’t understand the rules of engagement, you’re going to fail. You need to write for the reviewers, not just, like, a cool thing about your science. So we do mock study sections where students review grant applications as though they were an NIH grant reviewer.

Secondly, we help students put together a highly vetted aims page that has the highest likelihood of success. We set up peer-review modules so students get feedback in a formalized way both from their fellow students and then from the faculty.

The secret sauce of GRASP is our work plans. In academia, we stink at project management. No one teaches us this, unlike in business. We’re just reactionary. “Oh, I see there’s a grant application due in three weeks. I think I’ll write something up.” In today’s world, that generally fails. So we created work plans.

How do work plans work?

Typically, most people who get a five-year K award wait until four years and nine months to apply for their next grant. That’s kind of too late. Even if it gets funded, you probably need to be bridged, because you’re going to have a gap. It takes about nine months before you hear if you’re actually funded, so it’s kind of like a pregnancy.

We looked at the five-year grant timeline and said: If you want to be successful, you should probably apply the beginning of year four. Then you should know if you’re funded or not by the end of year four. Based on the stats, most people won’t be funded on the first attempt. With our timeline, if the first attempt is unsuccessful, you would then revise and submit at the beginning of year five. That way, by the end of year five, hopefully you’re funded and life is great.

We then backed up further to map out what you need to do every month to have a successful grant application. Year one you’re starting to carve out your area of focus as an independent investigator, separate from your mentor. Year two, you start to make drafts of your project and your hypothesis, and you circulate an aims page for people to look at. Year three is all the heavy writing, and then year four, you’re submitting your application. Year five is the resubmission.

Does it work?

Nationally, about 12% to 14% of K awardees go on to get R01 funding on the first attempt. Our numbers fluctuate a bit, but about 52% of [GRASP graduates] ultimately get an NIH grant funded. That’s way above the national average.

“Nationally, about 12% to 14% of K awardees go on to get R01 funding on the first attempt. About 52% of [GRASP graduates] ultimately get an NIH grant funded.”

It’s really about just making it simple. If I asked you to build a lunar module to go to the moon, you probably could not do it, even if you’re really smart. But if I said during week one, put a nut here. Week two, put a screw here. At the end of five years, we would have built a lunar module. That’s kind of our approach to preparing a well-vetted, highly competitive grant application.

What motivates you to keep doing this?

I wanted to stay in this so that I could make a difference. Most people at academic institutes are doing very cool research, especially at this university. How can we help people so that they can continue to do research and get the funding they need? It should be a positive experience, not a negative one.

I remember, as a senior fellow in gastroenterology, I was ready to apply for my first major grant, so I put a draft together and gave it to my mentor. He looked at me and said, “What’s this?” I said this is a strong draft of my grant application and I want to get your input. He said, “Well, you know, it doesn’t quite work that way. You’ll submit it, and if it’s funded, you deserve to do research. If not, I guess you don’t.”

This Darwinian approach has been the norm. Maybe that was okay when at least 25% of all NIH applications were funded, but today’s landscape [is different].

We created GRASP to support the development of that next generation of investigators. How do we nurture them? That’s the big theme of our education team at Harvard Catalyst. Now more than ever, given the climate we’re in, we have to continue to think about what we can do that makes that difference. That’s the fun part of GRASP, and Harvard Catalyst in general.