The 10 Commandments of Grant Getting

Bruce T. Milne

Department of Biology, University of New Mexico

Revised June 2003

 

After serving on several scientific grant review panels for federal agencies, I was compelled to suggest some guidelines for improving the competitiveness of proposals submitted by my students and colleagues.  In the face of tremendous competition and severely limited funds for research, beginning and experienced investigators alike may find some helpful tips here.  The suggestions are presented in a format reminiscent of the biblical admonishments to emphasize the risks for failing to consider these basic elements.  Emphasis on “grant getting”, as opposed to “grant writing” conveys the importance of positive thinking throughout the process.  Good luck!

 

  1. Thou shalt be compelling (but humble).  The reviewer needs to fall out of their chair with interest and genuine excitement on the first page or so.  The excitement must carry through the entire proposal so that the reader is brought to the brink of our current knowledge and develops a craving for the answers that your funded work will bring.  Your work should be groundbreaking.  Often, proposals resubmitted two or three times (see commandment 10) fail to get funded for lack of the compelling element, even after having been polished to a high luster of technical correctness.

 

  1. Thou shalt read the “request for proposals” (RFPs) issued by the agencies.  You should call or even visit the program officers to learn what kinds of proposals they are looking for and what sorts of proposals their panels fund.  Avoid submitting to the wrong program.

 

  1. Thou shalt ask colleagues to share funded proposals with you and thereby learn the effective strategies and styles for crafting the document. 

 

  1. Thou shalt include nontrivial alternative hypotheses that can yield strong inferences.  In relation to commandment 5, the hypotheses are devices for tying the goals of the work to the methods, experiments, and expected results; there should be a one-to-one mapping of hypotheses onto other parts of the proposal. This creates the thread to carry the compelling motivation of the work throughout.

 

  1. Thou shalt plan and describe all statistical analyses completely.  Do not leave anything to the imagination especially the names of techniques, sampling designs, and sample sizes.  If you mention a technique (e.g., Markov model), then explain why it is appropriate, what the assumptions are, what data are needed to apply the model, and how statistically valid inferences will be made.  Do not assume that the reviewer will have time to refer to published papers or web sites.  Avoid pseudoreplication.

 

  1. Thou shalt include preliminary results of your own or summarized from the literature.  You want to help the reader envision the expected results.  The motto “Show, don’t tell [passively about your ideas]” helps to generate the compelling energy of the proposal.  Embed figures and tables in the text as boxes or sidebars.  Make it easy for the reviewer to get your message.

 

  1. Thou shalt collaborate to cover expertise that you do not have.  You must be sure that you get your basic facts right.  Interdisciplinary work is becoming more common but your proposal may find itself at risk because experts from all the relevant disciplines review it.  At the NSF, several panels review such proposals, e.g., hydrology and ecosystems, or ecology and systematics.  Thus, the PI should be sure that all parts of the interdisciplinary work are excellent, complete, and compelling.  Sympathetic program directors are looking for compelling, risky proposals and may fund this work with the proviso that the investigators take the negative criticisms to heart while doing the research.

 

  1. Thou shalt adhere to all proposal preparation guidelines, e.g., format, page limits, font sizes (!), submission deadlines.  Agencies do reject proposals on the basis of font size alone.  If you are marginally compliant you will make reviewers mad.  Ditto for sloppy grammar and weak writing style.  Realize that electronic submission makes it easier and more effective to include color illustrations.  However, some reviewers are reluctant to adopt the electronic medium, so they request paper copies with black and white reproductions that might make it impossible for them to grasp the critical information that you intended them to get in color.

 

  1. Thou shalt diversify your portfolio to maximize the chance of being funded.  Learn what alternative funding sources are available.  Be aware that a given agency has many competitions that focus on different themes or goals, e.g., a hydrogeology competition might call for ecological contributions.  Only 10-12% of submitted proposals are funded in a given competition so you want to increase the odds by submitting to the right place.  

 

  1. If your proposal is rejected, ascertain whether it was submitted to the appropriate program.  If you re-submit, thou shalt include a small section to address each of the major comments of earlier reviewers, incorporating their positive suggestions where possible.  Almost certainly one or more of the reviewers will get to review the resubmission.  Agencies have memories and they maintain a file of all your previous submissions, funded or not.  Realize that with current funding rates at about 10%, it is normal for even the most seasoned investigators to resubmit, sometimes 2 or 3 times.  If you don’t resubmit the result is always the same; no funding.

 

 

Proposal writing is a skill and a craft like anything else.  It can be taught and learned.  Excellent proposals by beginning investigators will out-compete lesser proposals by giants in the field.  Funding is not automatic for anyone but is based on excellence: compelling, original ideas, feasible plans, and highly effective communication.

 

You are a professional writer. You write to earn your degree, to publish, and to obtain funding.  All these lead to getting a job in a department you cherish.  Take your job as a writer seriously and hone your communication skills by paying attention to what works and what doesn’t.  Ask colleagues to share successful proposals with you and spend time listening to them about the strategies they used to write the document.  Find out how they cultured their intuition and brought it together with concrete methods and study design.

 

In a sense, everything you are doing in your research is preparing you for your next proposal.  Spend the time to master literature in areas that are pertinent to your future work.  Find colleagues who can help.  Do preliminary projects that show proof of concept.  Strive for an intellectual “crystallization” that marries the background information you have mastered with your best intuition about what needs to be done next in your field.  In a sort of modern day alchemy, the crystallization provides the compelling ingredient for your proposal.  Once you’ve experienced that crystallization and seen it elevate your proposal to the “funded” category, you will always know what to do.  As lead PI, I never submit proposals that fail the crystallization test!