NIH Narrative

The NIH allows you 3 sentences to summarize your proposal in the form of a narrative statement. This structure forces you to succinctly and directly address the NIH's review criteria, specifying whether your research proposal innovatively addresses a problem of importance (Factor 1) in an achievable (Factor 3) and scientifically sound manner (Factor 2). It's also unlikely to be an accident that the Research Strategy has 3 key sections (significance, innovation, approach) and the narrative requires a 3 sentence summary. This symmetry provides a structure for the narrative. 

Sentence 1: State the problem your proposal addresses and comment on its significance. 

Sentence 2: Describe your hypothesis, and why it offers an innovative solution to the significant problem you defined in sentence 1.

Sentence 3: Describe your approach, summarizing your aims and concluding with a brief callback to the original problem. 

Often it can be helpful to write the narrative after you've written your full proposal, as you want to be sure that all the key concepts you mention in the narrative are addressed in the proposal, and all the concepts present in the proposal are included in the narrative. It should be distinct from, but mirror your abstract. With the title and the abstract, the narrative also helps drive which study section and institute your proposal is sent to for review.

A well written narrative also serves as a source for the objectives section included on the NIH's "other support" form, and as a general summary of the work. It's worth spending time to make it great.