FUNDING APPLICATION TIPS
Make yourself valuable. Develop a set of demonstrable core competencies through your publications. Your CV is your portfolio of skill sets, and you will be judged on your ability to deliver. Don’t submit a proposal before you have a few publications under your belt in the relevant area
Get to know the funding sources. Different funding sources have different missions and different criteria. Your sponsored research office (SRO) should be able to help you get this information, and you should also peruse the foundation websites. Foundations have specific goals in terms of advancing a particular agenda. Government agencies have specific missions. Don’t forget about doing consulting work, particularly if you can turn the information gleaned from the work into an insightful publication. Identify the funding source which has the greatest overlap with your research interest and invest heavily in getting to know more about their interests. Get to know the key people. If you are going after grants, get in touch with the program officer. It is their job to know about their foundation, and they will often know about upcoming opportunities at both their foundation and others. But don’t waste their time. A courteous email which provides a concise outline of your research idea, and connects it to their mission is a much better introduction than a phone call out of the blue. Get to know the community by presenting at conferences. This helps in several ways. First, a good presentation helps establish you as competent and explains your research agenda beyond your proposal. Second, the networking with others who have been successful at getting grants helps you get a better sense of the funding source’s portfolio, and the style of research they support. Third, members of the community will typically be asked to review any grant proposal you submit. Submit your first few grants with senior colleagues. Grant writing is a skill that is not typically taught in graduate schools, and on the job training is the best way to learn how to acquire that skill by working with people who have been successful at it. Write well and have a focus. In your opening paragraph, state your focus. Every sentence that you write in the grant should develop your key idea. Write clear prose that assumes the reader is an expert, but not necessarily deeply embedded in your project. You should have a clear and logical beginning, a middle, and an end to your proposal. Write multiple drafts and eliminate verbosity, jargon and extraneous sentences. Cite other research that relates to your idea, but make it clear how your work fills an important gap in that research. |
HOW TO SUCCEED WITH YOUR FIRST GRANT
Remember, applying for a grant or a fellowship can at times be a long
and difficult process, and require that multiple components be
organized then submitted. Often, successful applicants are
often organized and patient, and have support from either an adviser or
another peer.
At the 2015 APA Convention, Sara Weisenbach, PhD, ABPP-CN provided a guide for trainees and early career psychologists to start thinking about their first grant. Her talk reviewed strategies for obtaining pilot funding and pursuing career development awards through the VA and NIH. Dr. Weisenbach has provided a copy of her slides: DOWNLOADABLE RESOURCES
Some helpful resources for
the grant application process:
- The Art of Grantsmanship - 10 Tips for Better Grant Writing - Grants Demystified - The NIH Peer Review Process - New Investigator Guide to NIH Funding - Tips for New NIH Grant Applicants - NIH Careers in Grant Management - APS Grant Writing Tips - APA Dissertation Funding Tips - Getting That Graduate Fellowship 
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Ask for feedback and resubmit. It’s very important to get others to read your proposal and make critical suggestions so that you submit the strongest possible proposal to the funder. There are reputation consequences to submitting poor proposals. If you get good, constructive, reviews, consider resubmitting the proposal. Consult with the program officer before doing so, and spend a lot of time making sure you address each point carefully
Deliver. Once you get that first grant, make sure you deliver on what you promised. Let the program officer know about your publications, presentations, and other visible consequences of their investment in you. The more valuable that your research is, and the more active you are in the professional community, the more likely it is that the funding agency will continue to support you throughout your career.
Deliver. Once you get that first grant, make sure you deliver on what you promised. Let the program officer know about your publications, presentations, and other visible consequences of their investment in you. The more valuable that your research is, and the more active you are in the professional community, the more likely it is that the funding agency will continue to support you throughout your career.