Listing grants on CV

[shadowclaw]

Hello everyone,

I have a question about listing a grant on a CV. When I did my masters, my advisor wrote a grant to fund my research. The grant came from an office within the university and was competitive, not to mention it was a pretty decent-sized sum of money. In the grant proposal, my advisor is listed as the PI and I am listed under the category of "other participants" (these are the only two categories available on the grant proposal cover sheet). While the body of the grant proposal mainly focuses on the scientific rationale, there is also a line in the objectives/outcomes section that states how the project is an important component of my degree.

I am unsure if I should list this on my CV since 1) I am not the PI, and 2) I didn't do the writing. However, I am also inclined to list it on my CV since 1) I am listed by name and department on the grant, and 2) my status as a graduate student and the need for money to complete my degree was an important factor in the decision to give us the grant. 

So if I can list this on my CV, how would I describe my role? I am certainly not a co-PI, but would I be considered a co-investigator? Is there even a difference between these two terms, because I haven't found consistent results when I tried to google this. From what I read, I fit the description of a co-investigator, since I designed most of the project following some guidelines from my advisor and did all of the work myself.

Any thoughts on this?

[rising_star]

Personally, I wouldn't list this on my CV. I only list grants for which I applied (either solo or with others) and received funding for.

And yes, there is a difference between a Co-PI and a co-investigator, at least in my area. On large NSF grants, the writing is typically done by the PI and co-PIs (writing the grant, that is) while the co-investigators are listed for their expertise in particular areas but do not actually contribute until after the project is funded. And, even then, the contributions of co-investigators are typically far less substantial. 

[TakeruK]

First, I want to say: Ask your advisor for the best advice on the specifics of your field (and they would know your situation a lot better). Here is what I think, from the point of view of a third party:

I think that since you did not write a major part of the grant itself, and because you are not a Co-Investigator, you cannot claim "authorship credit" for the grant, unfortunately. At least, you should not list this grant under a heading like "Grants awarded" or "Awards received" etc. However, if you want to indicate that your project was cool enough that it received such a grant, I would note it under the description of your research project. In my field, I might make a note like "Projected funded by NASA Origins grant" etc. 

To me, co-PI and Co-I are different things. I think that Co-PI means the PI role is shared between 2 or more people (think of it like co-first-authorship). On the other hand, Co-Is are more like coauthors on a paper---they might contribute to a specific part of the proposal and if funded, they might be responsible for completing a specific part of the project (rather than managing the whole project).

In my opinion, I think like the big difference between "Co-I" and "Participant" (could also be called "Trainee" or "Student" or "Other Personnel") is that a Co-I has some stake in the grant as well, while "Participant"/"Student"/etc. are personnel that will work on the funded grant. As such, many grants (and also institutions) have policies that do not allow graduate students to be a "Co-I" on certain external grants. In some sense, the grant is actually awarded to the school to be disbursed to the investigators, so if you "own" a part of the grant, then you may be considered an employee, and also your actions (e.g. mismanaging) the grant can have negative implications for the school. On the other hand, if you are simply a graduate student working on a project funded by the grant, you're not responsible for grant management and there's liability to the school.

For example, there is a fellowship awarded by NASA to students in Earth & Planetary Sciences that is funded as a grant. The instructions make it very very clear that the student must write the entire proposal by themselves (input from advisor is OK but they cannot write any part of it). All of the legwork in putting together the documents is on the student. And the grant is evaluated like a fellowship (we submit LORs and transcripts too). However, when you submit the actual grant proposal, the faculty member is the PI. The student is listed in the role of "Student", not Co-I. The grant comes with a small research budget that is meant for the student to use as desired (usually for conference travel) but as the PI, only the faculty member can actually authorize disbursement of these funds. One notable thing (and I think this is part of the difference between Co-I and "student" roles) is that if I wanted to change projects, since the grant is attached to the faculty member + project, the grant can be easily reassigned to another graduate student who will replace me on the original proposed project. (For what it's worth, since this grant is effectively a fellowship that comes in a research grant form, I would list it in a CV the same way as I would any other scholarship/fellowship).

Maybe for an internal grant, things work differently and you are allowed to be a Co-I on your school's internal grant. After all, it's a lot less liability because an external funding agency isn't involved. So again, ask your advisor for the best practice in your field. But typically, for an external grant in my field, it's very very rare for graduate students to be at the Co-I level (unless it's a grant specifically for student PIs) and a little rare for students to have contributed enough to a grant that one would put it under a "Grants awarded" type section in a CV.

[shadowclaw]

Thanks for the input, @rising_star and @TakeruK! You have definitely made it more clear as to what a co-investigator is and how I should approach listing grants on my CV (as in not listing grants I didn't personally take part in writing). I was updating my CV for some applications for internal fellowships at my school, and one of the criteria for judging applicants is grants awarded. So I really wasn't sure of how to approach that grant! I like the idea of adding a note to the research project that it was supported by a grant, though.

[fuzzylogician]

51 minutes ago, TakeruK said:

First, I want to say: Ask your advisor for the best advice on the specifics of your field (and they would know your situation a lot better). Here is what I think, from the point of view of a third party:

I think that since you did not write a major part of the grant itself, and because you are not a Co-Investigator, you cannot claim "authorship credit" for the grant, unfortunately. At least, you should not list this grant under a heading like "Grants awarded" or "Awards received" etc. However, if you want to indicate that your project was cool enough that it received such a grant, I would note it under the description of your research project. In my field, I might make a note like "Projected funded by NASA Origins grant" etc. 

This. Your PI will have the best and more appropriate advice. I would not list this under "grants" on your CV because you did not write the grant and you were not officially on it, you were just a student contracted to do some of the work. A good indication of this is that, if there is a paper coming out of this work, I assume that the acknowledgements footnote will include text to the effect that "this research was supported by grant #123 awarded to <PI>", and you wouldn't be mentioned there, though you will still be a co-author. So, you participated in generating the products of the research, but not in securing the funding.  

I have, however, listed grants that have funded projects I have participated in as part of the project description on my CV. So, for each such project, I list the PI, my main responsibilities, the project duration, and the funding agency, if any. I keep this to about 2-3 lines, and I do it in a way that's clear that the grant went to the PI, not me, but I think it's still fair to list the grant there because it's relevant to the scope and success of the project. The important thing is not to write anything that could be misinterpreted as you being dishonest or deceitful about the facts.

[shadowclaw]

Thanks, @fuzzylogician! What made me consider listing the grant was that I was listed as an "other participant," and I wasn't really sure what that meant. Asking my advisor is definitely the best route, but for the moment I'm just adding a note to my research experience section that the project was funded. It's interesting that you mention that in a paper, the funding would be listed as  "this research was supported by grant #123 awarded to <PI>" in the acknowledgements. I can't think of a single paper I've read in my field that lists the PI as the recipient. Normally, the authors just list the funding source.

[fuzzylogician]

That would be another option, too. This probably depends on the field. In mine, if there are multiple co-authors and some of them have funding from some grant that others aren't on, you'd list it that way. Might be different if it's a PI and his/her students, actually, come to think of it. So, again, your PI is going to be the source of the most accurate information for your situation. 

[TakeruK]

2 hours ago, shadowclaw said:

It's interesting that you mention that in a paper, the funding would be listed as  "this research was supported by grant #123 awarded to <PI>" in the acknowledgements. I can't think of a single paper I've read in my field that lists the PI as the recipient. Normally, the authors just list the funding source.

I guess it's a difference of field. Usually the papers in my field say something like "Author A is grateful for funding from Grant #123, Author B is grateful for funding from Grant #456" etc. Typically, "Author A" is just going to be the initials of the author. And typically, you don't list every single grant that every single author has, only the grants that fund work used directly in this paper and grants which the authors are the PI of. So, normally you do not see more than 1 or 2 grant acknowledgements (unless it's a special paper that combines the data from many authors, each of whom has their own grant to get the data in the first place). 

My collaboration groups typically contain people across many institutions and funding sources, but I know that elsewhere in my field, if the same grant funds the entire project, it's true that the acknowledgements will not name the PI specifically and just say "The authors are thankful for funding from XYZ" (e.g. if it's a paper with a PI, their grad student and a postdoc funded by the same grant). 

[serenade]

On January 19, 2016 at 7:41 PM, fuzzylogician said:

I list the PI, my main responsibilities, the project duration, and the funding agency, if any. I keep this to about 2-3 lines, and I do it in a way that's clear that the grant went to the PI, not me, but I think it's still fair to list the grant there because it's relevant to the scope and success of the project. The important thing is not to write anything that could be misinterpreted as you being dishonest or deceitful about the facts.

If your advisor is okay with you listing this grant, I think this is the way to do it. However, last year when my professor won a grant for me, I put it on my CV and he gently told me to take it off. However, I hadn't credited him with it like this, so maybe if I had followed the above advice, he would have been cool with it. 

[TakeruK]

36 minutes ago, serenade said:

If your advisor is okay with you listing this grant, I think this is the way to do it. However, last year when my professor won a grant for me, I put it on my CV and he gently told me to take it off. However, I hadn't credited him with it like this, so maybe if I had followed the above advice, he would have been cool with it. 

Note that fuzzy said that they listed the grant name in the description of the research project, not in the grants section of the CV. I think even if one credits the advisor in this way, it would still be inappropriate to put under "grants".

[fuzzylogician]

12 hours ago, TakeruK said:

Note that fuzzy said that they listed the grant name in the description of the research project, not in the grants section of the CV. I think even if one credits the advisor in this way, it would still be inappropriate to put under "grants".

Exactly. If you didn't win the grant, I don't see any circumstances under which it'd be ok to list it under "grants," no matter who agrees. 

[serenade]

I see. Apologies.