Writing lay and scientific summaries

Find out how to write clear lay and scientific summaries for your research application. This page explains how to communicate your project in plain English, structure your abstract and proposal, and consider diversity in study populations.

Writing lay summaries

What is a lay summary?

Lay summaries are descriptions of your work written in plain English. They are important because they explain your research to people outside of your field of expertise.

This includes lay members of our Research Review Panel, who help decide which project applications are awarded funding.

What to include in a lay summary

  • Lay title
  • Brief background or context – including a description of the unmet need(s) that your research will address
  • The aim of your project
  • How you’ll do your research
  • The impact of your project – what might your results mean for people with lung conditions?

Our grant application form asks for these points to be condensed into three sections:

  1. Lay title
  2. Study focus
  3. Summary of potential impact

Language guidance

  • Keep writing simple and direct
  • Use short, clear sentences
  • Avoid technical or scientific terms (or define them simply if unavoidable)
  • Don’t use acronyms or jargon
  • Avoid nominalisations – e.g. instead of utilisation, write using
  • Write as you would speak

Writing scientific summaries

Your research proposal and scientific abstract are key components of your grant application.

Abstract

An abstract is a concise summary of all major aspects of your project. It should include:

  • Brief background or context to your research
  • Hypotheses or specific aims
  • Methodology summary
  • Expected results
  • The impact of your project – how will your expected results contribute to your field of research?

Limit: 300 words maximum.

Detailed description of research proposal

This section should explain:

  • What your project sets out to achieve
  • How it will achieve it
  • The impact it will have on your field of research (and on people with lung conditions)

What to include:

  • Overview of your field of research
  • How your project will contribute to it
  • Gaps in evidence, and how they led to your project development
  • Experimental design and methods (including power calculations, where relevant)
  • Statistical analysis plan (if applicable)
  • Outline timetable for the work
  • Supporting pilot data and references

Write this section so it can be understood in isolation, without referring to other parts of your application.

Also required:

  • Project time frame, including proposed start and end date
  • Check application guidance for page limits

Reflecting patient population in clinical studies

We know that a range of demographic factors like age, ethnicity and sex can affect the experience of, and outcomes in, lung conditions. For example, we know that women experience worse asthma symptoms than men. With this in mind, we ask applicants to consider demographics in their studies.

Guidance for applicants:

  • For clinical studies provide details of how the recruited population will reflect the UK patient population for your area of interest. Researchers are encouraged to analyse data by sex to identify differences between males and females.
  • For animal studies describe the sex of animals used in experiments and justify your approach.