Getting grants.

"Many agencies make public information about who may be reviewing your proposal. When you submit an investigator initiated proposal to NIH, the Center for Scientific Review (CSR), which manages most scientific review within the agency, will assign it to the Institute that seems to fit it best, and then to a review panel within that institute. At NSF and at many private funders, program officers determine which reviewers will be assigned to a proposal. You can include with your proposal a cover letter describing where (for NIH) your submission should be reviewed and the background or interests of appropriate reviewers. Some researchers also use cover letters to ask that particular reviewers not be assigned to the proposal, usually citing conflicts of interest."

"Postdoc-to-faculty bridging awards, which bridge the gap between postdoctoral training and independence, have become more common but are still rare. Today the most prominent bridging grant is NIH’s Pathway to Independence Award, the K99/R00. NIH’s “K” series grant mechanisms are career development awards, and “R” series mechanisms are research project grants that support independent investigators. The K99/R00 supports mentored postdoctoral training. Once hired into a tenure track faculty job or its equivalent, the award recipient’s work is reviewed and if it is judged adequate, the awards can continue with the faculty level R00 segment of the award. Funding of the second step is not guaranteed—it is possible to lose the award after the postdoctoral stage is reviewed. Serving as a reviewer can rapidly help you improve your understanding of what comprises a fundable grant and of how scientific review works. CSR offers an Early Career Reviewer (ECR) program that allows independent but not yet funded investigators to participate in study section up to twice. Having your proposals reviewed by colleagues and reviewing their proposals in turn is an invaluable exercise that can give you more experience to improve your grant writing. As you read and critique others’ proposals you will get a better sense of how language and structural factors make a persuasive argument or leave the reviewer doubting that the proposed work is up to par. Colleagues’ critiques will highlight the same problems, inconsistencies and unclarities that will give reviewers pause. Ideally, by the time it is submitted, your proposal will anticipate and respond to the concerns that will arise as a reviewer reads and follows your logic."