You will write a 5-paged single spaced grant based on your research question that is formatted according to NIH guidelines, and written as if it were going to be reviewed by the NIH criteria described below. All of the proposed work must be experiments that can be completed in a laboratory. Human trials or drug trials or clinical trials are not allowed. The goal of the grant must be to understand some kind of interaction involving microorganisms. It can be basic science or applied, and it does not need to be related to health in any way (even though NIH requires this).
You will be writing this grant as if you were sending it to the National Institutes of Health (although you do not need to pretend it has an impact on human health. we are mostly just using their format). Here is a link to some R01 samples, annotated by NIH. https://www.niaid.nih.gov/grants-contracts/sample-applications#r01. I highly recommend that you look at these examples in pdf form to see the comments.
Below is a description of the sections you should have in your proposal. I want a title page with the title of your grant, your name, and your institution. The next page of your grant should consist of the summary statement (described below) and nothing else. Pages 3-8 of your proposal should be your project narrative, described below. Your project narrative should be no longer than 5 pages, single-spaced, including figures, tables, and figure captions and tables. After the project narrative, (pages 8+) you should have a bibliography section that cites all of the references used in the project narrative. This bibliography section is not included in the page limits of the narrative or summary statement. You do not need to include a bio or budget, etc. The formatting requirements are posted at the end of this description.
These are the instructions for the summary statement
The Project Summary must contain a summary of the proposed activity suitable for dissemination to the public. It should be a self-contained description of the project and should contain a statement of objectives and methods to be employed. It should be informative to other persons working in the same or related fields and insofar as possible understandable to a scientifically or technically literate lay reader. This Summary must not include any proprietary/confidential information. Please click the Add Attachment button to the right of this field to complete this entry.
The Project Summary is meant to serve as a succinct and accurate description of the proposed work when separated from the application. State the application’s broad, long-term objectives and specific aims, making reference to the health relatedness of the project (i.e., relevance to the mission of the agency*** you do not have to argue that your project affects health, but you still need to explain why it is important). Describe concisely the research design and methods for achieving the stated goals. This section should be informative to other persons working in the same or related fields and insofar as possible understandable to a scientifically or technically literate reader. Avoid describing past accomplishments and the use of the first person. Finally, please make every effort to be succinct. This section must be no longer than 30 lines of text, and follow the required font and margin specifications. An abstract which exceeds this allowable length may be flagged as an error by the agency upon submission. This would require a corrective action before the application will be accepted.
Project narrative instructions
These are the sections you should have in your project narrative. Each section must be labelled with a heading, and subsections must also be labelled with a heading. ignore the following sections: Preliminary studies for new applications, Progress report for renewal….,