Streamlining Our Application Process
Through the years, we’ve been grateful to receive feedback about the application process for our research awards. You’ve told us that changes to our application process occur too frequently, are often confusing and inconsistent, and should be better communicated in advance of any major releases.
And we listened. In May 2015, PCORI began an initiative to enhance our application process. A cross section of researchers, patients, caregivers, clinicians and other healthcare stakeholders helped us figure out how to streamline procedures, reduce applicant burden, increase clarity and consistency of messages, minimize redundancies and extraneous information, and increase the quality of applications submitted to PCORI.
We want to ensure that you, our applicants, are indeed successful.
Based on that advice, we have now made a number of enhancements to ensure a more productive application experience. Some of the major changes include reorganizing PCORI’S merit review criteria to better align with NIH’s review criteria and identifying and addressing inconsistencies in our application materials.
We now provide even more clarity regarding what we mean by stakeholder engagement and offer more specific examples of its place and role in PCORI-funded research. We’ve reduced and restructured the resources that we provide for applicants and updated our website content to make it easier for you to find what you need, when you need it. We’ve also taken a critical look at our internal processes and developed a strong change management process to reduce the frequency of changes to our application process. We want to ensure that you, our applicants, are indeed successful.
New Templates for Completing Your LOI
These links provide a 2017 LOI template for the following research award categories:
Broad PFA LOI Template: Addressing Disparities, Assessment of Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment Options, Communication and Dissemination Research, and Improving Healthcare Systems
Methods PFA LOI Template: Improving Methods for Conducting PCOR
Pragmatic Studies PFA LOI Template: Pragmatic Clinical Studies to Evaluate Patient-Centered Outcomes
Improving Applicants' Experience
Our most recent round of funding announcements, Cycle 1 2017, opened on January 17, 2017. With it, we consolidated our Broad PCORI Funding Announcements (PFAs) into a single announcement. No longer do you have to download four separate announcements to determine which fits best with your research question. Rather, we now offer topic pages linked from the announcement to provide guidance on how you should tailor a submission based on PCORI’s research requirements for that topic.
We’ve also streamlined our Letter of Intent (LOI) requirements and provided templates to further reduce applicant burden (see box).
Lastly, PCORI is proud to announce the debut of a new version of PCORI Online, our portal for applicants, which should enhance the applicant experience throughout LOI and application submission.
The new portal opened to applicants on January 17. An updated user guide is now available along with other training materials.
Coming Soon
When the Cycle 2 2017 funding process opens in mid-June, we’ll be introducing an updated research strategy template that reduces page limits and streamlines the requirements for our Pragmatic Clinical Studies funding opportunities. The intent is to further reduce applicant burden. You may preview the new template now.
Because all applications for funding must adhere to relevant PCORI Methodology Standards, we’ve created an easy-to-use Methodology Standards Checklist to assist you in including our required standards throughout your proposal.
Your Continued Feedback is Important
PCORI appreciates your feedback as we continue to refine our systems and processes. Please send inquiries to pfa@pcori.org for more information.
PCORI program officers are also be available to discuss the updated application process with potential applicants and to answer any questions you may have. Send inquiries to sciencequestions@pcori.org.