What Most PIs Get Wrong About The NIH Biosketch
I’ve reviewed hundreds of biosketches, and there’s one thing that I noticed that most PIs get wrong about completing their biosketch.
It also happens to be one of the most helpful things that our students learn about in terms of how to maximize the competitiveness of their NIH R01.
When it comes to reviewing grants, the biosketch is easily the biggest missed opportunity for most PIs, and here’s why.
This Is Not A CV
When it comes to thinking strategically about your biosketch, the number one thing to note is that your biosketch is not a CV, where you list the amazing credentials for you and your team and that’s it.
Since reviewers use the biosketch to assess the investigators' scoring criterion, it’s a huge opportunity to go even further.
By further, I mean, in addition to the credentials, you must describe:
Expertise
Experience
Roles
Responsibilities of the entire research team
That last one is important because not only do you have to present a strong biosketch of your own as a PI, you also have to make sure that everyone else’s biosketches are just as compelling. They should complement your own and tell the same story about who’s on your team and why.
The biggest mistake PIs make here is that they miss out on providing context for the team and how each member is going to contribute to the overall project.
The Right Team
If you think about it, here’s one of the biggest questions that reviewers are assessing when they’re looking at the investigators:
Is this the right group of people to execute the research project?
They’re also considering if your team is going to be able to achieve the outcomes you’re promising.
With this in mind, if you’re just handing reviewers a bunch of CV-like biosketches, that’s not giving reviewers a clear picture of what they need to know so that they can score you well.
So you want to take time and give your reviewers as much context as possible.
What I mean by this is giving deeper insight into who these people on your team really are in relation to the research you’re proposing.
Are their expertise and experience—as great as they may be—relevant to this project?
What will each team member actually do…and does it align with their strengths?
This is where a lot of biosketches fall short.
PIs know they’re spending a lot of time talking about their expertise and experience, but what they’re not doing is describing what they’re actually going to be doing on the project.
This is also true of every other team member—as they’re described within the grant and as they present themselves in their biosketch.
It’s that next layer that you really need to dig into and explain:
What is each person’s role?
What are their responsibilities?
Why are they the right person for that responsibility?
Remember, you never want to leave a reviewer guessing or filling in the blanks on their own. So describing this combination of roles, responsibilities, experiences, and expectations is going to really show your reviewers why you’ve assembled this A-Team to be able to deliver on the promised outcomes.
Personal Statement & Contributions
The main place you want to enhance your biosketch is with your personal statement and contributions to science. The other sections are pretty straightforward, so these are the only two places within your biosketch where you have a bit of flexibility.
In your personal statement, you introduce yourself as a scientist and why you are in the role you are holding on this team. The key here is to make it very clear to your reviewers who the individuals on your team are and what they are going to be doing. Then you can move forward and explain why you’re the right one to lead this team and overall project, showcasing your expertise and experience.
This is your chance to describe your previous grant funding and the key papers that are relevant to your role on the team. Again, you want to make sure that you have a good context for those elements. Reviewers want to know why you are including that particular information and how it’s relevant to your proposed project.
For your contributions to science section, remember that this is not just a continuation of your personal statement or the chronology of your career. It’s really about the concrete contributions you have made to science and in what domains.
Every single one of your included contributions to science should come with a description of what the contribution is. And take advantage of approaching this with extreme specificity. The more specific you are about your contributions and the more evidence you have, the better your reviewers will be able to understand why you’re in that role on your team.
Building Your Team
This is the process for your entire research team. The more context and evidence you provide in your biosketch, the more likely you are to increase your chances of trusting that you have put together the right team. The more trust reviewers have in your team, the more likely it is that your reviewers will be confident that the team you’ve assembled is the right one for the job—and it’s more likely that you’ll end up with an outstanding Investigators score.
Level Up Your R01
If you found this useful, I encourage you to head over to our website and sign up for our FREE resource library. It has a lot of tools and tutorials, and other materials in there for you to help you write an outstanding NIH grant.