BHGC Step-By-Step: Phase I Project Evaluation

You’ve invested your time and energy into identifying an innovative application of cutting-edge biomedical research and are ready to turn that mental investment into a commercial success. The SBIR/STTR program seems like the solution to your needs, but the process appears convoluted and intimidating. You certainly could develop the necessary skills and expertise to write your own grant application and manage the back end of grant management, but you would rather focus your learning and energy on your innovation.

This is the exact scenario we had in mind when founding Blue Haven Grant Consultants (BHGC). We’re here to help you move your project forward, secure the funding you need, and support your journey toward commercial success. That journey starts here—an initial evaluation of your project that helps our team understand your project and identify opportunities for greater project refinement and National Institutes of Health alignment.

Information Gathering

During our initial free consultation, we’ll focus on learning about your team and your project. We’ll ask in-depth questions about your team's capabilities and skills to understand where your strengths lie and where we might be able to augment your capabilities. Communicating your team’s readiness is a key criterion for NIH reviewers.

We’ll also take a deep dive into your project to explore the core idea, objectives, desired outcomes, and commercialization targets. Becoming deeply familiar with your project is part of our core operating philosophy that enables us to be an effective partner in your project. 

Lastly, we’ll discuss current NIH funding priorities, especially at the specific institute level. This will help us communicate your funding needs directly to NIH priorities and identify potential institute specific additional sources for research and development funding.

Setting a Path

With a solid base of information, it’s time to start building our path to grant application success. First and foremost, we’ll work with you to establish your role as a principal investigator. As the project leader, we’ll work with you to both understand the responsibilities and authority that you have as well as help you develop and refine skills necessary to effectively guide the project team and stakeholders.

With PI responsibilities established, we can focus on developing strong specific aims. Using a collaborative process, we’ll help refine your project's objectives, ensuring they are not only specific and measurable but also achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). This process not only helps convey your project plan to NIH reviewers, but we have found that digging deep into specific aims often helps the project itself become more concrete and achievable.

With strong specific aims in place, we are well-placed to create a roadmap to success that identifies important research and development milestones and deliverables. This roadmap creates manageable expectations and timelines and ensures that dependencies are identified and that roadblocks are identified and addressed well in advance.

Connecting With a Program Officer

NIH program officers are invaluable knowledge resources that too few project teams consult with. Connecting with and learning from program officers is certainly part of the BHGC plan, however. This is why we spend the time to identify a potential institute fit so we can help coordinate your meeting with relevant program officers that can shed additional insight on project alignment, institute priorities, and other vital grant-related wisdom. We often find that following a program officer consultation there is valuable feedback that can help your team refine the roadmap and further mprove your funding competitiveness.

On to the Next Stage

Phase I Evaluation complete! Your team will have a project roadmap with specific aims and achievable milestones. You’ll have contact with at least one NIH program officer and received valuable feedback to help further refine your project proposal. And with our BHGC Pay Upon Award™ model, you won’t have spent a dime for any of this value.

In the next installment of BHGC Step-By-Step, we’ll look at our Phase I Proposal Preparation in more depth. In the meantime, consider setting up a free consultation to explore if the BHGC advantage is what your team is looking for.