VBRN Grant Writing Workshop 2025 – Saint Michael’s College

Saint Michael’s College – Roy Room, Dion Family Student Center

Register for this event

The VBRN Grant Writing Workshop will be held from 12:00-5:00 PM Friday, November 7, 2025, at Saint Michael’s College, Colchester, VT. Attendance at this workshop will be required for all faculty intending to apply for Exploratory or Pilot Award funding from July 1, 2026-June 30, 2027 or Project Award funding for July 1, 2026-June 30, 2028. Attendance is recommended for a faculty who have received VBRN funding in the past and are interested in applying for individual NIH, NSF, or other federal or non-federal grant support in the future.

The program will consist of an informational session followed by small group breakouts to review the submitted pitch papers described below. Lunch is included prior to the start of the program with roundtables dedicated to VBRN Thematic Interest Group networking and VBRN Core Facilities. There will be tables for established thematic groups (Disease Ecology, Bioorganic Chemistry, Neuroscience, Health and Movement Science, Data Science, and Plant Biology) as well as emerging groups currently in development (CURE, Monitoring Indicators for Human Health).

Key dates for 2026 VBRN applications:

• Request for Applications (RFA) will be available on the VBRN Awards page in early October
• Pitch paper due: Wednesday, October 22, 2025 – Email your pitch paper to your BPI coordinator with a working title for your proposal and 5 key words. This is a mandatory requirement to participate in the grant writing workshop. Also, provide contact information for suggested reviewers if you have them.
• Grant Writing Workshop: Friday, November 7, 2025
• Letter of Intent due: Monday, December 1, 2025
• VBRN Application due: mid-January, 2026 (TBD)
• VBRN Award funding decisions: end of March 2026

GWW Tentative Agenda:

Details on the Pitch Paper (draft Specific Aims page)

Faculty interested in VBRN funding will submit a NIH-style proposal. Because our network is comprised of primarily undergraduate institutions, VBRN encourages faculty to submit AREA R15 and R16 grants for extramural funding. Please note that the NIH AREA R15 review criteria are used in the VBRN review process and for the pitch papers.
Faculty interested in EPSCoR funding will submit a NSF-style proposal. NSF EPSCoR review criteria are used in the review process and for the pitch papers.

For the pitch paper, faculty are asked to include at a minimum Specific Aims of the proposed research (one-page total). Optionally and additionally, VBRN faculty may include draft Significance and Innovation components of an AREA R15 application (two-pages total, including the Specific Aims page). NSF EPSCoR faculty may include draft Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts components of an NSF application.

VBRN is currently working to recruit local reviewers to participate in the small group breakouts; typically, these include local experts in areas that are appropriate for the PUI faculty applicants. If you have any suggested reviewers you would like to recommend, please share their contact information with your BPI Coordinator. VBRN will then reach out to any suggested reviewers.

The Specific Aims page:

The Specific Aims page is particularly critical as your “calling card” to your readers. During an actual NIH Study Section, only the three reviewers (Primary, Secondary and Reader) will read your full application closely, but all panelists will typically scan the Specific Aims page during the review to get an overview of the proposal. Hence, your Specific Aims page is critical for selling your application to the whole panel. Most applicants will typically format their Specific Aims page using a standard formal structure. It starts with a short paragraph that will introduce the main scientific question and then present a statement of the central hypothesis that your work will test. Next, write a short paragraph for each of the 2-4 principal objectives (Aims) of the study. Each Aim should include the premise behind the Aim, a description of how the Aim will be achieved, and what the likely impact of successful completion of the Aim will be to the field at large. Some PIs conclude their Specific Aims page with a brief impact statement describing how completion of the research will positively impact on the NIH Mission. A good Specific Aims page convinces the reader of the importance of your question, the logical strength of your central hypothesis, and the strength of your approach in testing this hypothesis.

Significance and Innovation components:

The Significance and Innovation sections function to convince the reader of the overall urgency of your scientific question, and whether you have devised a novel and forward-looking approach to test your main questions. Essentially, a well written significance section answers the why of your grant and convinces the reader that the problem needs further research. It should support your premise for the importance of the question and help frame why your hypothesis is reasonable. The Innovation section is an argument for the novelty of your approach. Typically, novelty is expressed in the form of a novel hypothesis, a new scientific approach or technique, and a novel conceptual framework to study and analysis.

For additional resources on writing Specific Aims as well as Significance and Innovation sections contact VBRN ([email protected]).

An excellent guide for writing NIH grant proposals:

Robertson, John D. et al. The Grant Application Writer’s Workbook: National Institutes of Health Version. January 2019 edition. Buellton, CA: Grant Writers’ Seminars and Workshops, LLC, 2019. Print.
For NSF grant proposals reference:

Robertson, J. D., Russell, S. W., & Morrison, D. C. (2018). The grant application writer’s workbook. National Science Foundation, FastLane version. (01/2018 edition.). Grant Writers’ Seminars and Workshops, LLC.

NIH Review Criteria include the following components. Consider these in the preparation of your pitch paper.

Overall Impact

Reviewers will provide an overall impact score to reflect their assessment of the likelihood for the project to make useful scientific contributions to the research field(s) involved, to provide research opportunities to undergraduate students by engaging them in primary research activities, and to strengthen the research environment of the institution, in consideration of the following review criteria and additional review criteria (as applicable for the project proposed).

Significance

Does the project address an important problem or a barrier to progress in the field? Is the prior research that serves as the key support for the proposed project rigorous? If the aims of the project are achieved, will the data be publishable and useful to the field? If funded, will the AREA grant have a substantial effect on the applicant institution in terms of strengthening the research environment and exposing undergraduate students to research?

Innovation

Does the application take advantage of, challenge or build on current research concepts and models or research techniques? Are innovative approaches to engaging undergraduate students in research proposed?

If you have any questions about the workshop, please contact your BPI Coordinator or [email protected].