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General
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Unresponsive to the specifics of the program announcement (e.g., no demonstrable PI contact with patients/research participants in a K23 application) Sloppy construction with frequent errors in spelling/syntax For revised applications, being unresponsive to the prior critique—meaning not addressing the major concerns of each reviewer
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Candidate
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Inadequate scholarly productivity for stage in career development Unexplained lapses in career development Sloppy construction of the NIH Biosketch with admixing of peer-reviewed manuscripts, abstracts, review articles—interpreted as lack of mentor engagement Inclusion of articles in preparation or under review in the biosketch Reference letters that are less than uniformly laudatory and/or template duplicates Failure of the candidate to educate the referee as to the goals/objectives of the specific K award
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Career Development Plan/Career Goals and Objectives
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Career development activities not aligned with the candidate’s background and/or long-term career goals No discussion of timing/approach to the crucial K-R transition, namely no plans for generation and submission of an R01 in the ~3rd to 4th year of the K award Lack of details regarding training in survival skills (e.g., grant writing, manuscript generation, leadership skills, etc.) necessary for a durable academic investigative career Lack of an advisory committee—highly desirable (although not required) in applications with multiple mentors/collaborators/consultants and in those applications that engage multiple sites Lack of specificity of the metrics by which the candidate will be able to gauge his progress along the career development path Failure to align career development activities with known strengths of the institution, such as participation in the educational offerings of the institution’s CTSA program
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Research Plan
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Lack of an organizing hypothesis and/or inclusion of descriptive specific aims Unclear overall focus and/or overly ambitious Interdependent (rather than interrelated) specific aims Incomplete discussion of analytic approach/expectations Inadequacies in consideration of potential pitfalls/confounders and incomplete discussion of potential strategies to minimize these, should they be encountered
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Mentor(s), Co-Mentor(s), Consultant(s), Collaborator(s)
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Mentor team not aligned with the candidate’s career goals/objectives, namely inadequate rationale for the inclusion of each mentor Inadequate details for the frequency, duration, and content of the mentoring contact of the candidate with each of the mentors, particularly the primary mentor Inclusion of a primary mentor at a different institution than the candidate Lack of mentoring track record for some/all of the mentors Primary mentor without active major peer-reviewed grant support Lack of specificity of the metrics by which the mentor will be able to gauge the candidate’s progress along the career development path
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Environment and Institutional Commitment to the Candidate
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Boilerplate description of the institution’s capabilities/resources, rather than a review of unique strengths relevant to the specific candidate (e.g., technologies, patient populations, specialized centers, unique databases, tissue sample repositories, etc.) and their career goals Lack of specificity of the institutional commitment to the candidate including what is being provided (rank, space, start-up funds) and what is being limited/protected (e.g., percent effort, administrative/clinical/teaching responsibilities) Absence of a clear discussion of how the candidate’s research will be supported financially given that the research budget of typical K award applications is generally not sufficient to fund the proposed research Statements to the effect that institutional support is contingent upon the receipt of the K award
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