Significance and innovation: cornerstones of a successful grant application

Catherine J Hunter; Allan M Goldstein; Jayme Locke; Clifford S Cho; Ankush Gosain

doi:10.1016/j.surg.2021.03.011

Significance and innovation: cornerstones of a successful grant application

Surgery. 2021 Oct;170(4):1080-1082. doi: 10.1016/j.surg.2021.03.011. Epub 2021 Apr 24.

Authors

Catherine J Hunter¹, Allan M Goldstein², Jayme Locke³, Clifford S Cho⁴, Ankush Gosain⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Surgery, Oklahoma Children's Hospital, University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, OK. Electronic address: https://twitter.com/Cjhunter18.
² Department of Pediatric Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.
³ Department of Surgery, University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, Birmingham, AL.
⁴ Department of Surgery, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI.
⁵ Department of Surgery, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN; Children's Foundation Research Institute, Le Bonheur Children's Hospital, Memphis, TN. Electronic address: agosain@uthsc.edu.

PMID: 33902925
DOI: 10.1016/j.surg.2021.03.011

Abstract

The Significance and Innovation sections of a grant application are the cornerstones to a successful application. These sections emphasize the importance of the problem being studied, highlight what is novel about the proposal, and are an opportunity to get the reviewers excited about the application. To the novice grant writer, it may be difficult to know what "Significance" and "Innovation" are meant to describe. In this article we define the role of the Significance and Innovation sections and provide suggestions on what to include in each section and potential pitfalls to avoid.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

Biomedical Research / economics*
Financing, Organized / organization & administration*
Humans
Organizational Innovation*
Writing