Turning Your Research Idea into a Proposal Worth Funding.

Great ideas for clinical research often originate at the bedside when clinicians are forced to make a decision about a patient’s care, but an absence of published evidence complicates the decision-making process. This is typically how gaps in the literature are identified and translated into opportunities for clinical research. This scenario happens on a daily basis, possibly many times per day, in every clinical discipline. Most of these ideas will not be worthy of the time and effort required to develop and conduct a research project, but a few will come up often enough to warrant further consideration. This consideration requires self-assessment of your level of interest in the topic; assessment of the clinical need for new data and the feasibility and logistics of actually conducting the study; and assessment of local resources available to do the research. It is highly unusual to identify meaningful projects for which all the necessary resources are readily available, but the need to obtain external funding may be seen as a roadblock for novice researchers. A study that requires funding should be viewed not as a closed door to researchers new to the world of grantsmanship but rather as a necessary step that will increase the chances of research success and validate the importance of the project.