Pre-proposal Considerations

Pre-Proposal Considerations

Tips to help you start the proposal process

Authorship Guidelines

Prior to considering submission of a research proposal, the principal investigator should consider submitting a Minor Data Request form for a feasibility review. Once a research question is deemed feasible and can be answered by the PAC³ registry data fields, the principal investigator should proceed to completing the Research Proposal Form. The principal investigator is responsible for developing a research team but may seek advice from the Scientific Review Committee (SRC) and Data Coordinating Center (DCC) chairs.

It is the principal investigator’s responsibility to be sure that every member of the research team meets all 4 criteria of authorship. In addition, the principal investigator is responsible for developing a research team that meets the additional PAC³-specific authorship requirements. Finally, the research team should agree on authorship roles (first author, senior author, middle author) during the initial meeting of the research team.

According to the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), authorship credit should be based on the following 4 criteria:

  1. Substantial contributions to conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work
  2. Drafting of the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content
  3. Final approval of the version to be published
  4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved

Additional PAC3 authorship requirements include:

  • Investigators should be from a minimum of three PAC³ centers
  • Authors must be from centers who are submitting data to the PAC³ registry
    • Note: The center must have been submitting data within the past 6 months for authorship
  • The committee recommends including authors from a variety of professional backgrounds (e.g., senior/junior faculty, APPs, nurses)
  • There is a maximum of 8 PAC³ authors (an additional 2 authors are approved if project utilizes multi-registry data); if additional authors are necessary, may need to obtain approval from anticipated journal

The principal investigator should become familiar with the Research Proposal Form fields and request clarification when necessary. All fields of the Research Proposal Form must be completed for the proposal to be considered. The proposal should be written with consideration to standard scientific methods and in complete sentences with clear rationale for each of the study aims. We encourage principal investigators to consider the potential role existing health inequities may play in the question to be studied.

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