Within a grant application, a Specific Aim is a component of the Research Plan that succinctly describes the goals of the proposed research and summarizes the expected outcomes, including the impact that the results should exert on the research fields involved.
Typically, Specific Aims are premised on research objectives, e.g., to test a stated hypothesis, create a novel design, solve a specific problem, challenge an existing paradigm or clinical practice, address a critical barrier to progress in the field, or develop new technology.
Peer reviewers rely on Specific Aims to quickly understand the overall goals of an application’s Research Plan. Moreover, scientific review officers use applications’ Specific Aims to assess what expertise may be needed on a peer review panel when recruiting reviewers.
Read our Draft Specific Aims advice page for a longer discussion of how to design your Specific Aims.