A Model for Drafting Specific Aims

Something I like to call the “Trimethylcyclohexane Model”

By the time a typical NIH R01 application is complete, it can easily include 100 pages of documents. The gateway to that dense pile of information for a reviewer is the one-page Specific Aims document that summarizes the meat of your proposal. It’s the one page every person on the review committee will look at, and the first page most of the assigned reviewers will probably read. So it’s worth putting a bit of extra effort into making sure this page leaves a good impression.

The NIH provides just 73 words of instruction for drafting the Specific Aims page:

“State concisely the goals of the proposed research and summarize the expected outcome(s), including the impact that the results of the proposed research will have on the research field(s) involved. List succinctly the specific objectives of the research proposed (e.g., to test a stated hypothesis, create a novel design, solve a specific problem, challenge an existing paradigm or clinical practice, address a critical barrier to progress in the field, or develop new technology).”

Several researchers have elaborated on this brief guidance with their own advice (see References below). Drawing from that discussion, I made a model that illustrates a path for outlining the various components of a Specific Aims page. Drawing from my undergraduate Chemistry major, I colloquially refer to it as the “Trimethylcyclohexane Specific Aims Model.”

The “Trimethylcyclohexane Specific Aims Model” showing how each component is connected.

Step 1 | Introduction/Background

Start with a first sentence that gets right to the topic of your proposed research and piques the reader’s curiosity. In journalism, this is called the lede or the hook. Follow by establishing what is known about the topic and why it is important.

Step 2 | Knowledge Gap

Once you have provided sufficient background, clearly identify what aspects of your topic that are not known. Provide a statement of need that explains what the knowledge gap is and why it is important for you to bridge that gap. Alternatively, your proposed work may focus on merging subfields, in which case you would be identifying areas of overlap rather than a gap.

Step 3 | Objective

Your overall objective will be an outgrowth from the knowledge gap you identified. Here, you will carve out your niche by explicitly stating what you aim to contribute to your field in broad terms. This would be a good place to begin a second paragraph that lays out the rationale for achieving your stated objective.

Step 4 | Preliminary Work

Any good hypothesis is founded on good observations. Here you lay out that foundation by describing any important data gathered so far. That may include published and unpublished results of your own, or published work of others that is relevant to your central hypothesis.

Step 5 | Hypothesis

As stated by Goldstein, et al. and others, “A well-written second paragraph should produce a narrative so clear that the reviewers can predict your hypothesis before they even read it.” The central hypothesis should be broad enough to encompass any sub-hypotheses that are stated in the aims, but not so broad that it simply restates the objective. Note that some applications may be product- or process-driven as acknowledged in the NIH guidelines above, in which case a hypothesis is not needed and the objective may suffice.

Step 6 | Specific Aims

Articulate at least two specific aims, but not more than four. Each aim should be stated as its own paragraph with a title, brief rationale, and often a sub-hypothesis. The title of each aim can be sharpened by focusing less on what you plan to do (e.g., compare gene expression levels), and more on why you want to do it (identify mechanistic genes). You will only have enough space to briefly describe the methodology of how you plan to do it in the paragraph. Try to keep your aims open-ended, as Goldstein et al. explained: “A well-crafted aim will ask ‘does A cause B, or does it cause something other than B?’ This keeps options open for a different potential outcome.” Avoid interdependent aims, and vague verbs that imply no endpoint such as explore, understand, study, investigate, compare, correlate, evaluate, or describe. Instead, verbs such as characterize, define, determine, or identify may be more useful.

Step 7 | Outcomes

This is where your aims page comes full circle. It is where you show that the expected outcomes of your aims will fill the knowledge gap you pointed out at the top of your page. Describe the broader impact that you expect your work to have in the field, bearing in mind that it may not be self-evident to the reviewers. This final paragraph may only be a couple sentences. Some people call this the impact statement or payoff paragraph.

Final Thoughts

The illustrated model aligns with most of the published advice on drafting the Specific Aims page, but there are variations. In this regard, Goldstein, et al. had one final piece of advice worth noting:

“..many of these recommendations are flexible and should be adapted depending on the nature of the work proposed and the prevailing conventions in your specific field. You may need to arrange sections differently or emphasize certain parts more than others.”

References:

1. Goldstein AM, Balaji S, Ghaferi AA, Gosain A, Maggard-Gibbons M, Zuckerbraun B, Keswani SG. An algorithmic approach to an impactful specific aims page. Surgery. 2021 Apr;169(4):816–820. PMID: 32709487
2. Monte AA, Libby AM. Introduction to the Specific Aims Page of a Grant Proposal. Acad Emerg Med. 2018 Sep;25(9):1042–1047. PMID: 29608233
3. Robertson JD, et al. The Grant Writer’s Workbook, National Instiutes of Health Version. Grant Writers’ Seminars and Workshops. Website Link
4. Santen RJ, Barrett EJ, Siragy HM, Farhi LS, Fishbein L, Carey RM. The Jewel in the Crown: Specific Aims Section of Investigator-Initiated Grant Proposals. J Endocr Soc. 2017 Aug 17;1(9):1194–1202. PMID: 29264575
5. S Michelle. NIH Grant Applications — The Anatomy of a Specific Aims Page. BioScience Writers. Website Link

Robert Lawrence is a science editor at Baylor College of Medicine. You can find his published work at www.robertlawrencephd.com