The NIH has very specific guidelines for preparing a grant proposal, and getting those guidelines implemented in LaTeX is somewhat non-trivial. For my own future reference and to help others who may want to submit NIH grants in LaTeX format, I am providing this template. Using this simple makefile produces an empty document that looks like this. I have used this form to successfully submit multiple grant proposals to the NIH, so I feel somewhat confident that it accurately implements the NIH guidelines.
Here are some notes regarding the template:
-
The NIH requires that the various pieces of the grant be uploaded separately. I find it easiest to produce a single PDF in LaTeX, then break it into separate pieces just before submission.
-
While writing the grant, I typically embed the actual instructions for each section into the document. When it's time to submit (or when I need to check on the length restriction), I uncomment the "instructions" line in the header of the file.
-
When submitting a revised grant, the sections that have been modified need to be indicated in the proposal. I typically do this by inserting the following lines into the header of the document:
% In the revised version, we will use changebars to indicate where the
% text has been modified. Use ``\cbstart{foo foo foo \cbend}'' to
% delimit these areas.
% For documentation, see
% http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/changebar/changebar.pdf
\usepackage[rightbars]{changebar}
% Make the changebar close to the text.
\setlength{\changebarsep}{0.05in}
\setlength{\changebarsep}{0.05in}
% Use 1/2-inch margins.
% Include extra space on right for the changebars.
\usepackage[left=0.5in,top=0.5in,bottom=0.5in,right=0.6in]{geometry}
Other NIH+Latex web pages:
I would welcome any comments or suggestions for improvement to the above template.
Bill Noble william-noble@uw.edu