Two of the documents that are included in every NIH research proposal are the Project Summary and Project Narrative.  These are two simple and short documents, but they have very specific requirements that must be followed.

It is recommended that these be the last documents that you create when you are writing your proposal.  This will ensure that they reflect the final written objectives of your proposal and you won’t have to go back and revise them if your technical approach changes.  The majority of the content for these two documents should be contained in your Specific Aims document, so once you’ve finalized that, the Summary and Narrative should be simple to write.

Guidelines for Project Summary

The Project Summary is essentially an abstract of the proposed project.  The Summary document must be suitable for distribution to the public, so it should be informative to the technically literate reader and not include any proprietary information.  When a project is funded, the Project Summary will become part of the NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tool (RePORT), where it can be accessed by the interested public.

The basic content of the Summary should include the objectives of your proposed project and the top level methodology that you plan to follow.  State the long-term goals related to your project and how the project will help you reach them.  Connect your project to the mission of the NIH and the research priorities of the institute or center you are targeting.

Follow standard font and margin guidelines when writing your Summary, and avoid using first person language.  The Project Summary must have no more than 30 lines of text and be saved as a PDF.  If the text is longer than 30 lines, your abstract could be flagged with an error, requiring corrective action.  Since all errors have to be corrected before the close of the proposal period, it is critical to ensure that your Summary meets the requirements.   A concise Summary is best.  The Summary is uploaded to Field #7 on the “RESEARCH and RELATED Other Project Information” component of the SF 424 portion of the application.

Guidelines for Project Narrative

The Project Narrative is a statement demonstrating how your proposed project is relevant to public health.  The Narrative should not contain more than two to three sentences, and must be saved as a separate PDF file to be uploaded to Field #8 on the “RESEARCH and RELATED Other Project Information” component of the SF 424 portion of the application.  While your Project Summary will contain some direct benefits of your proposed project, the Narrative should contain more long term and far reaching benefits.   

For example, a therapeutic drug could reduce the length of time a patient is afflicted with a condition, allowing him to return to work faster.  A tool that allows a physician to save time writing reports could increase his time to spend with patients.  A product that targets a specific type of infection in a hospital setting could reduce the spread of that infection and reduce the costs of controlling that infection.  Keep the wording of the Narrative simple so that it can be understood by a general audience.