J. Obtaining Health Economics Expertise

4. Will HERC write a letter in support of my grant proposal or career development award application?

Helping researchers who are writing proposals is one way HERC fulfills its mission of improving the quality of VA health economics research. HERC will provide information about cost data, methods, cost-effectiveness analysis, study design, and other issues. HERC does not actually design or carry out customers' studies.

HERC would like to avoid writing letters of general endorsement for a study or its methods. Short turn-around times provide little chance for us to review finished proposals in a timely manner. Moreover, HERC does not want to be perceived as the organization that evaluates the scientific quality of proposals with economics; that is the role of the peer review committee.

We will write letters to describe HERC products or services needed for a particular study. For example, we can describe the availability of the HERC average cost data set, and whether it will be useful in answering your study questions.

Individual HERC investigators who are directly involved in designing and carrying out a study may write a letter of support for their collaborator's proposal; however, in these cases, it is more likely that they will be listed as a funded co-investigator.