Tips and Suggestions for K99/R00 application

First of all, I want to emphasize that this is my own experience with NIBIB so you may hear different stories from awardees at different NIH centers. Let’s focus on the things you need to check before application:

Check with your mentor(s) whether they are ok with your application. Some PIs do not let their postdoc to apply for K99/R00 or other transition grants
Check the eligibility requirements. If you are not a US citizen, you may not apply to all available K99/R00 grants. I am not a US Citizen, and I can find couple of options easily.
It is important to have persistence, practice, planning, coordination and self-confidence during the whole procedure.
You may think that you are not ready for this application but you are not alone. There is no any application that is perfect. Thus, as long as you have specific aims and write up for 8-9 pages then you can try. At least, you can get valuable feedback so that you can use it for the next application.
So, make a good plan in advance, think hard about your current and future research and apply your thinking to write up. Generally, it is better to give yourself 3-4 months before the deadline.
If you are lucky, you can get the funding in the first application. If not, do not worry and take the reviewers' comments seriously and apply again.
Write up your specific aims in one page and share it with your mentors and colleagues. Then, send it to the program officers (PO) of the NIH centers that may be interested in your proposal.
If they like it and encourage you to submit your application, then you are ready to go. If not, you can send it POs in other NIH centers. Also check success rates of each NIH centers for K99/R00 applications.
Keep in mind that it is important to have a good relationship with your POs.

During your application:

It takes a village to apply and get this grant. So, talk with the people who may help you prepare this grant.
Talk with finance people in your department and let them know that you are going to apply for this grant. Be aware that they are the ones who will submit your grant on behalf of you. Also, they can help you to coordinate various things during and after this application process.
Also talk with your colleagues whom you think you can get help during this process and let them now that you are going to apply for this grant.
Talk with your potential or existing collaborators and inform them you are going to apply for this grant. You need couple of letters from your collaborators.
Talk with your mentors and help them write their mentor statements. Make sure that they emphasize in their statements that they do not have any conflict of interest with your proposed research plan.
Check with finance people at your institute when they need all your documents. In general, they need 1-2 weeks in advance of NIH deadline. You may have some flexibilities in some documents if you have good relationship with them.
Ask reference letters in advance. Since your referees need to submit their reference letters, they may have some issues to upload these documents. So, give them these links in advance so that you can figure out issues if necessary.
Read your full application carefully. Make sure that you do not have typos. If you are not a native speaker like myself, ask one of native speaker colleague to proof-read your application.

After your application:

-First of all, please be aware that although you spend a lot of time to prepare and submit your application, you need to wait also a lot of time to hear back from NIH that your grant will be awarded after your application. On average, you will hear back from NIH after 10-12 months of your submission. It may be a little bit longer especially if you submit your proposal in October cycle because it will be evaluated in the new fiscal year. So, it is better to submit your proposal in February or June cycle if it is possible.

-After 3-4 months of your submission, your study section meeting will happen. After 2-3 days of this meeting, you will see your score on NIH website. Most probably, you will log in to your NIH count many times during these 2-3 days.

- If you get a score, first of all it is a good thing because there are many applications that are not scored. In general, 50 % of the applications are not scored at all. Although it depends on the NIH center that you apply, in general if you get a score <=30, you will get the grant.

-After couple of weeks, you will receive the summary statement. You can also call your PO afterwards. In your call, most probably your PO will give you a lot of insight about why you get this score and will tell you off the record whether you can the grant or not. Of course, there is no guarantee that you will get the grant even though your PO told you so.

- It is important to know that your PO will never tell you or email you after your summary statement that you will receive the grant. You need to be patient to get this information from them.

-3-4 months after the study section, there will be advisory council meeting where your grant is either advised or not advised to be granted. After this meeting, you can talk with your PO again and PO will give you more insight.

-Your PO will also tell you that you will hear from grant managing specialist (GMS) in couple of weeks. GMS will request from some documents related your and your mentors’ current and pending grants. After GMS finishes the evaluation, you may see some status change in your application as ‘award prepared’ which is a good indication for your proposal. After couple of weeks of this status change, either you may hear from your PO or you can see another (hopefully final) change in your status as ‘application awarded’.

-Then, your institution will be informed about your grant. Your finance people will contact with you and your mentor(s) about arranging project number for your salary and research expenses. After you get the official letter from NIH about your grant, you can celebrate your huge success.

-Let me know if you have further questions/comments. You can email me.

-Good luck.