This Tip Sheet provides recommendations for completing ACBS grants to help the submitter improve the quality of their application. It benefits first-time submitters, early researchers, and/or people who have previously submitted grants.
ACBS Grant Information
ACBS Foundation Grants (Open January 15 - March 1)
Research Development Grants (Open August 15 to October 1)
Each grant application has a question focused on the project’s description.
This outline should be no more than 1500 words. Grant reviewers identified that for most applications, the project description section is the area that submitters can improve most. The section’s parts are outlined with guidance below:
1) Level of Detail
Ensure the description provides enough detail, including a straightforward research question or project goal statement, a rationale for the project, a description of the methodology and design, a data analysis plan, and a timetable. The grant reviewer should understand what will happen during the funding period based on the application's content, especially for the selected intervention, procedures, and data collection methods.
2) Feasibility
When researchers create grants, they often get excited and set timelines that aren’t feasible. Ensure that when preparing this proposal, a team reviews the expectations set forth and what the team can achieve with limited funds, current expertise, and available resources. These projects are meant to be innovative and also realistic.
3) Methodology & Design
Make sure the methodology presented matches the team’s goals (e.g., for a pilot study, an acceptability and feasibility design might fit best rather than evaluating changes between groups). Additionally, the project’s design should be consistent with a contextual behavioral approach to science. For instance, being overly focused on symptom reduction is likely to result in a poorer score. Focusing instead on improved functioning and/or a connection with ACT processes is likely to result in a higher score.
4) Rationale
The rationale must be concise and comprehensive, ensuring gaps in research, training, implementation, or systems are identified clearly. The investigator must establish the necessity of the study, its utility to others (e.g., the knowledge base), and why a contextual behavioral scientific approach is indicated.
5) Estimated Impact of Project
Ensure a thorough literature review recognizing previous or similar work(s) is presented in the submission. The project's addition to the knowledge base must be reviewed as having a significant impact and being meaningful to the ACBS community and mission.
Additional ACBS Resources: Additional information about NIH grants and grant writing
Recommended book: High-Quality Psychotherapy Research - Patricia A. Areán; Helena Chmura Kraemer - Oxford University Press