So, you’re wanting to apply for MRFF funding, but aren’t sure where to start in writing your application?
Just like strapping on a parachute upside down, if only you’d known what not to do before you started!
We’ve compiled a list of the 8 common weaknesses we see in MRFF applications and provide guidance for how to avoid these pitfalls and leverage your application toward success.
1 - Tokenistic consumer engagement
The regularity of this occurrence means we’ve chosen it as the number one weakness.
It’s very easy for reviewers to spot where meaningful involvement of consumers across all stages of the proposed research is lacking, and/or when consumer engagement is a last-minute addition to the proposal to ‘tick the box’.
MRFF is a scheme that highly values consumer engagement across all stages of the research lifecycle, and this is reflected in elements underpinning key assessment criteria. For instance, without engaging consumers before and during conceptualisation stages, you’ll be unable to address key MRFF criteria that ask applicants to explain how the ‘…needs, priorities, views and values [of consumers] have informed the research question and its conceptualisation, development and planned translation and implementation’ (wording of one of the Project Impact Assessment criterion for the majority of MRFF funding opportunities).
It’s also very easy to spot where consumers have not been involved in the conceptualisation of the research idea, prioritising the issues, and defining the questions, study design and methodology.
Even before conceptualising the research idea, it can be helpful to keep this phrase in mind - commonly employed in the inclusive research domain - ‘nothing about us, without us’. Demonstrating consumer engagement before and during conceptualisation of your research project is imperative to ensure significant needs are identified, priorities are determined, approaches designed, and barriers and enablers are understood and addressed. Who could be more well-placed to do this than consumers with i) lived experience of the targeted condition or issue, ii) interest in an acceptable, appropriate and effective intervention or solution to the problem, and iii) understanding of local context, cultural sensitivities and needs?
With the Project Impact criterion in mind, let’s use the example of an intervention aimed at increasing understandable communications between clinicians and patients for those with low health literacy. Robust engagement with consumers during conceptualisation, design and planning, will substantially leverage the appropriateness, acceptability, useability, feasibility, uptake and sustainability of the intervention. After all, who better to inform what is needed and the best way to do it than those most affected and most likely to benefit?
Meaningful consumer engagement is commonly enabled through establishment of long-term relationships of trust with consumers. Consumer needs are a key driver of research needs, and having your research focus, questions and approach co-designed with consumers will substantially increase the real-world impact. Isn’t making a positive change what research is about?
2 - The Project Impact section does not align with the Measures of Success statement
When assessing Project Impact, reviewers will use your project’s statement against the MRFF Measures of Success.
You may ask ‘Why, what’s the link between these two sections?’ We discuss this issue in detail within an earlier blog that you may like to read, found here.
Let’s consider the third/final column of your Measures of Success statement. It’s in that column that you identify your project’s intended outcomes. As with any funding body, MRFF expects that those outcomes will result in real-world change. Therefore, within your Project Impact section you should discuss what will change and for who, in relation to the outcomes you’ve indicated you’ll produce.
3 - Partners: no cash contributions or plenty of cash but absent from the research
All MRFF applications should have committed partners, and that commitment is often reflected in the extent of their cash and/or in-kind co-contributions. However, partners shouldn’t be reduced to their contributions alone. Obviously, there must be benefit for the partner, and the extent of their commitment reflects the value they see for their organisation and/or their members or end-users. For example, the return on investment of a cash contribution could be substantial if the intervention will result in reduced injuries, infection post-surgery or readmissions.
The other weakness we commonly see is partners not having meaningful roles in the life of the project. Good applications have good justifications of why partners are involved. Perhaps they are engaged due to their capacity to influence change in practice and/or policy: this is ideal for a translational project. Your partners should be decision-makers, embedded within policy or practice settings and have real-world roles in hospital management, healthcare providers and government agencies amongst others, depending on your research focus. Ultimately, your partners have avenues, mechanisms, infrastructure and networks to directly reach the end-users that your research will benefit. They may also have capacity to leverage national roll out of your intervention. Given this capacity, the absence of partners from governance roles, risk management strategies, implementation of the intervention, dissemination and evaluation is often startling.
Your partners’ involvement in conceptualising and designing the project, and their capacity to influence change, means they would be mentioned in the Project Impact section. Their roles in facilitating recruitment, implementing the intervention and/or the dissemination strategy would mean they’re identified clearly in the Project Methodology. Their roles in governance and risk management, and various co-contributions, would see them mentioned in the Overall Value and Risk section. And their role in achieving outcomes would mean they appear in your Measures of Success Statement.
4 - The Project Impact section is used to present a literature review
The first assessment criterion for all MRFF applications is Project Impact. For MRFF applications submitted via the Sapphire portal, Project Impact forms the first 3 pages, and for MRFF applications submitted via business.gov.au, Project Impact is addressed in a 5,000-character online field.
Avoid using the Project Impact section as the place to provide a literature review. This section, like the name of it suggests, is where you discuss what the impact will be from your project, specifically from the outcomes you’ve identified in your Measures of Success statement.
Unfortunately, we commonly see the Project Impact response encompassing paragraphs (or even pages) of background information. Unlike NHMRC applications where it’s normal to present 1-2 pages of background information before the Project Methodology section, this is not the case for MRFF applications. Instead, when you’re explaining how you’re addressing an unmet need or building on existing evidence (these are commonly the first element of the Project Impact assessment criteria), we encourage you to refer to existing evidence/literature but explain HOW you’re building on that to bring about impact
5 - The Project Methodology section lacks detail
Coming in at number 5 of common weaknesses in MRFF applications is a methodology section lacking in structure, clarity, logical flow and/or detail.
Ideally, the Project Impact section should have set you up to determine your aims. Your aims should be as specific as possible, and clearly addressable by your proposed study.
After you’ve stated your aims and objectives, immediately begin providing a richly detailed methods section with a flawless plan.
It goes without saying that your research questions, aims and/or objectives should drive the choice of methods, but ensure the rationale for your choice of methods is clear so reviewers can see how your chosen methods enable you to address the aims.
Detail every step of the research plan, in a logical, chronological flow, and avoid any vagueness about the methodology that may attract questions from reviewers about feasibility.
Share your methods section with colleagues to see if they understand what you are proposing and how you’ll do it. You should be presenting a coherent package in terms of scope, design and expertise so ensure each element of your methodology fits together strongly. Use a figure, if necessary, to illustrate your proposed methods and/or how your aims link with each other.
You must have assembled a truly multidisciplinary team to undertake your translational project. Reviewers must see there has been exceptional thought gone into who is on team, including their expertise and complementarity with other team members.
Ideally, your Project Methodology section would clearly identify who will be undertaking various aspects of the research,
If early career researchers will undertake parts of the work, explain how they will be supported by more senior researchers and ensure the FTE allocation of those researchers is appropriate for the time necessary for training and mentoring.
6 - Unachievable outcomes identified in the Measures of Success statement research
The outcomes you discuss in the third column of your Measures of Success statement must be attainable during your project or within 12 months after your project funding ceases. For this reason, the outcomes must be tangible. We encourage you to quantify the outcomes, for instance how many clinicians will you train within the 4-year funding period or in how many clinics will your intervention be embedded as standard practice? You can also refer briefly to downstream changes that could happen because of your project, ensuring you align them with MRFF’s vision that appears in their Medical Research Future Fund – Monitoring, evaluation and learning strategy.
7 - Absence of translational research
Are you pivoting a previously unsuccessful application to an MRFF opportunity? The first thing you’ll need to ensure is that your research proposal is translational. MRFF is all about translation, in other words, health, social or economic impact. This focus differs to some other funding opportunities such as an NHMRC Ideas Grants that can be primarily about knowledge impact.
The harsh truth is that your time and effort to restructure a previously unsuccessful application for an MRFF opportunity will be wasted if your proposal isn’t a translational study. If it is translational, great! What are you waiting for?
8 - Proposal has not been written to the category descriptors
We encourage you to have the category descriptors (or assessment matrix, if you’re applying via business.gov.au) open as you write your proposal. This is because during panel discussions of your application, the independent chair will continually bring panellists and reviewers back to the category descriptors / assessment matrix. During writing, self-critique the quality of your proposal in terms of what MRFF is wanting to warrant the highest score possible: if you were a reviewer what would you score it? Perhaps have a colleague do the same and encourage them to be honest: now is not the time to have your ego stroked. It’s best to receive harsh comments from a trusted colleague now than from a tired reviewer later.
9 - What's the take home message?
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