Category: Risk and Feasibility

Should you ever doubt that risk is an important factor in grant evaluation, read on. I just looked at the reviewer comments for a European grant which missed funding despite an overall score of 87/100.  Let me just quote the reviewer comments under evaluation criterion 3 – Quality and Efficiency of the implementation:

“Potential risks in research activities are insufficiently substantiated. The mitigation strategies are only superficially addressed and insufficiently justified.”

To paraphrase, ” you have identified potential risks, but have not described them in detail – thereby indicating you need more awareness on how these virtual risks will take shape during your grant. Consequently, the strategies to lessen or handle these risks are superficial and whether they are the right ones to mitigate these risks is unclear.”

Note that the applicants are not accused of ignoring the risks. They are criticized for not demonstrating they have a clear idea of what these risks are and how to deal with them should the improbable occur.

So let’s learn about risks and the strategies to address them.

The norm ISO 31000:2009 defines risk as the effect of uncertainty on [accomplishing your] objectives. In the case of a grant, uncertainty affects pretty much everything: your budget, your plan A, your choice of a suitable approach and collaborators, etc.  Uncertainty’s effect is to make your project deviate from what you expect will be the normal course of events. Uncertainty introduces deviations around the normal (not a new concept, really) – some which can be compensated for, others which have far reaching and long lasting consequences. Where do these deviations originate from?  Unexpected events top the list. Either you did not know such events could happen,  or you presumed they would not happen, yet they did, and vice versa, or you minimized their likelihood,  or you misjudged their consequences and outcomes.

\CC BY-SA 3.0 Nick Youngson

You, the PI, are the risk owner and manager. Since you are accountable for taking risk, you need to justify the risk you take, within the grant application. But first, you have to identify the sources of risk, evaluate the degree of risk, and establish your risk profile. With your risk profile in place, you are ready to draw a risk-management strategy.

ISO 31000 identifies seven ways to manage risk: one to increase it, one to maintain it, and five to mitigate or cancel it.

• Increase the risk exposure when greater risk would have an even greater overall payoff.
• Monitor the risk closely without removing it for it has both beneficial and negative aspects.
• Decrease the odds of the negative risk by reducing uncertainty.
• Dilute the unwanted risk by sharing it.
• Change the outcome of events that affect the objectives because they increase task cost, introduce delays in task schedule, lower safety, or worse impact on the environment.
• Remove the risk trigger (circumstance, situation, process, environment, practice)
• Cancel the activity associated with the unwanted risk or replace that activity with one of lower or no risk.

Read again the book chapter on risks and determine which of these seven ways to treat the many risks summarized page 176 would be the most effective in your context. Context does matter because it favors the occurrence of events. Context is both external and internal. Each PI will be influenced differently by it.  The external context includes the scientific trends and how they affect the PI’s employer , the political, financial, economic context at a local and global level, as well as the quality of the relationship between the grantor and the PI’s organization. The internal context includes the organization of the PI, its objectives and policies, the support environment (equipment, facilities, IT, grant officers, availability of postdocs, collaborators…), as well as how well networked the PI is within and outside of the host organization.

Risk matters. Clarity in what risk is will make you a more effective troubleshooter when the probable becomes certainty. And It will make funding you… less risky!

Every PI has that question in mind as they write their proposal: How much risk should I take in my grant? Too much, I will be rejected, and too little, I’ll be rejected also.

A few years back Dr Rafal Zielinski from MD Anderson (Texas University) and I were invited by the Polish Foundation for Science to give a seminar on Grants in the beautiful city of Gdansk. Gdansk University Dean of Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, a uniquely gifted, both bold and bald professor, Dr Igor Konieczny, also gave a talk “Grant Writing in Poland, Perspective and Advice”. During the Q&A came the question of how the grant review panel regards risk. In his answer, Dr Konieczny used a very apt metaphor worth sharing: that of serving in tennis.

“The ideal situation is not to propose plans that are too risky. In tennis, with your first serve, you would target the corner of the court, but if you fail, with your second serve, you are simply going to pass the ball over the net. Design the grant application so that one thing is safe to achieve.”

Flickr: Carine06  – Roger Federer CC-BY SA 2.0

Young investigators often consider older PIs with envy, and also cynicism. They think that, by the time the PI submits a proposal, the preliminary work is so extensive and has removed so much risk and given the PI so much experience in the domain that feasibility is guaranteed; The ball will pass over the net. Naturally, much of that preliminary work was paid for by an earlier grant – which strengthens feasibility. Young investigators feel that their first serve should impress, send the ball in the corner of the court. Indeed, some of their later serves could, but the first serve should not. Simply hitting the grantor-sent ball (i.e serving their needs) and avoiding sending the ball into the reviewer’s net would already be a great achievement. The reviewer’s net catches the ball when the grant idea lacks strength: low significance or overused approach unlikely do deliver interesting results. Start there. Never mind the jump smash a la Roger Federer, the attacking volley a la Martina Navratilova. The donor referee will not be impressed if the ball hits the net.

Focus on getting the ball over the net first. This means your first specific aim should contain little risk, yet be seen as valuable on its own.