Common Mistakes in Submitting GRC Applications
- Preparing only the GRC form pages and neglecting to prepare the research proposal portion of the application; i.e., the protocol addressing specific aims, background and significance, preliminary studies, research design and methods, and literature review.
- Lack of a clear hypothesis.
- Discrepancies between specific aims and methodology; research design inadequate to accomplish specific aims.
- Relationship of study design to data analysis not clearly expressed.
- Inadequate justification of relevance of data to be collected in study.
- Lack of adequate explanation of terminology and proposed procedure(s) appearing in application.
- Assembling application in apparent haste such that it is poorly edited and thus contains numerous typos, errors, and inconsistencies.
- Proposed work appears to have already been completed by investigator.
- Project overly ambitious for a one-year, $15,000 study.
- Inadequate level of progress if requesting a second or third year of support.
- If submitting a second or third year application, concerns from previous year's review(s) not adequately addressed.
- Not following GRC guidelines and requirements.
- Not requesting items in budget which appear to be necessary to conduct study.
- Inconsistencies between budget and budget justification.
- Inadequate budget justification to substantiate budget request.
- Inadequate justification for request for personnel support, computers, and software.
- Inadequate documentation and description of required equipment, facilities, and personnel to conduct study.
- In studies utilizing a questionnaire, failure to include as one of the specific aims a pretest of the questionnaire.
- Inappropriately subcontracting a portion of the proposed work rather than investigator developing techniques necessary to conduct study.