By Peter Yanefski, Communication and Operations Coordinator

Sometimes, the best way to team up is to split up the work. And that’s exactly how the Histiocyte Society(HS) and Histiocytosis Association scientific committees score the research grant proposals.

Welcome back to our series, Granted, where we show that funding science isn’t magic. If you missed part 1, Conflict of Interest (COI), you can view it here.

There are a few ways that the Society and the Association split up that work. The first is in the initial stages of scoring. Once everything is organized by our Secretariat, Kathy Wisniewski, the proposals are sorted into (mostly) random groups by half, for each member to score. I say mostly random, because the applicant’s answer to the COI question may disqualify them from grading the proposal of a colleague or fellow proposal researcher. The groups overlap, based on how many proposals there are, but this process makes sure each proposal is scored by multiple people.

The grant proposal is scored based on scientific impact, feasibility, relevance to histiocytic disorders and overall impact.

Scientific impact – Will this move the needle in the given disorder(s)?

Feasibility – How possible is it to get this research done in the current state of science and technology? Is their methodology strong? Do they have obvious limiting factors?

Relevance to histiocytic disorders – Is this histiocytic disorder more in need of research at the moment? For example, HLH is the most fatal of the main 6 disorders, so if a study in that disease can make an impact, that’s taken into consideration as part of the score.

Overall Impact – How does this affect the wider histiocytosis community?

The Histiocyte Society Scientific Committee is tasked with doing the initial review of the proposals. Submissions are split up by specialty (LCH, HLH, etc.) among the committee members. Each proposal gets 3 commenters, Primary, Secondary and Tertiary and they comment on the above qualifications. Once all scores are completed, the Scientific Committee, as a whole, meets during the Histiocyte Society’s Annual Meeting, to review scores, at which time the commenters defend why they do or do not feel each proposal should be funded.

Once the Society’s Scientific Committee has completed their review, the committee convenes to discuss their rankings.  They make recommendations to the Association Scientific Committee.

The Association Scientific Committee, in turn, narrows it down to a top five or six, and gives that group the Histiocytosis Association Board of Trustees. The board then narrows it down to see who will receive the grants. Most years, four grants are awarded, although we have had five in the past, and strive to keep funding more.

The proposal which is scored the highest out of all receives the Toughill Founders Grant. This grant is a travel scholarship to scientific conferences or events, often used for (but not limited to) the HS Annual Meeting.

Once the funding is decided on, the applicants are given the comments on their proposals in order to see the thoughts of their peers. So, while their applications may have been good ones, they can see where their proposal may have not been as feasible or impactful compared to the other applicants.

Also, those who are awarded grants are required to submit those proposals as abstracts to the following year’s HS Annual Meeting.

That’s all to come in this next season. This process starts this week, since the grant window closed this week, and continues until December, when the grants are awarded. The next part in this process, is the layperson summaries, where it gets to you. We will break down that part of the process closer to the conclusion of the grant cycle. 

Part 3 to come in late summer. Stay Tuned.