Grant Proposal Writing

Successful writing of research statements and grant proposals is a fundamental basis to fund a career in research. This 2-day proposal writing workshop starts with the generation of a new research idea and the identification of an appropriate funding scheme. This requires knowledge on funding programmes and their scientific, political or societal background. Here, documents and professionals from contact points and funding authorities may be of much help. For an excellent grant proposal it is necessary to match the research idea with the evaluators’ view on what is wanted by the funding scheme and what is considered fit for funding. This usually requires work on the details of the idea and the specific research context. After this has been concluded, the work on the actual project and proposal can be started. A concept has to be generated, ideas, workplan and the approach have to be visualised, the budget needs to be planned and the overall proposal has to be structured and formulated. If other project partners or institutions are involved, the submission of documents has to be coordinated.Therefore the objective of this workshop is, that students obtain an overview on funding opportunities, understand the core aspects of winning grants and know how to adapt the proposal writing process to their funding scheme of choice. Depending on the duration of the training, exercises are focused on different process steps and required skills.

Process Steps and Required Skills and knowledge

1 Identification of the right funding scheme

• Overview on funding programmes, contact points and other sources of detailed information

2 Assessment of the framework defined by the funding scheme

• Meticulous textual work on funding programme documents
• Knowledge on political and societal background of funding programmes and schemes

3 Mapping the research idea to the framework to achieve a high relevance

• Understanding the objectives, the evaluation criteria and the informal, non-written aspects of the evaluation process
• Increasing congruency of the project with the funding scheme and the evaluators’ view by enriching or focussing the research idea or by variation of the project context

4 Setting up a concept for the project

• Planning objectives, approach and activities of the project
• Grasping risks and challenges internal and external to the project and defining contingency plans

5 Identification of necessary expertise and resources

• Translating objectives into a workflow of generating knowledge
• Finding the right stakeholders, project partners, team members
• Estimating resources and planning a budget

6 Structuring the proposal

• Once more meticulous textual work on funding programme documents

7 Visualisation

• Supporting the one-way communication with the evaluator by a coordinated interplay of figures, structure and text

8 Formulation of the different parts of the proposal with regard to the framework and the evaluation criteria

• Explaining the complex and detailed research ideas to the evaluator
• Communicating the progress beyond the state-of-the-art
• Restricting the information to what is required
• Answering to the political or societal aspects of the funding scheme to pin down the benefit and impact of the project
• Focusing the self-portrayal

9 Coordination of the proposal writing and submission process

• Detailed knowledge on all documents which are part of the proposal
• Coordination of getting necessary documents and contributions from stakeholders or project partners in time