Tips for Writing and Submitting Grant Proposals

BIOE 200A – Scientific Skills M. Carr

Tips for Writing and Submitting Grant Proposals

Based, in part, on notes and articles from:

Mark A. Hixon, Department of Zoology, OregonStateUniversity

Richard N. Mack, Department of Botany, WashingtonStateUniversity

Lecture overview: general to detailed

Having identified potential funding sources (FS) and obtained proposal guidelines…

I. Strategy / approach

(1) Identify and know exactly what funding agency wants to support.

Examples:

-anything marine will not be considered by Ecology section of NSF but will be considered by Conservation section (and Biological Oceanography).

- many applied FS specify multidisciplinary involvement

But! Recognize that many FS have similar goals. Same grant should be shopped to multiple FS. Implication… high potential payoff / effort.

(2) Read one or more recent successful proposals (those that have received a high priority score and have been funded by that FS).

(3) Discuss your ideas with established, experienced colleagues before you begin to write your proposal.

(4) Objective of proposal is five-fold; to convince source that:

i. the question being addressed is fundamentally important to the interests of the FS and their audience (that your work will produce major advance in a discipline and contribute to the good of society, examples below).

ii. you are (one of) the most appropriate people to study this problem

iii. you have thought clearly about the problem and have developed the most appropriate approach.

iv. you are not the only one to benefit intellectually from this project (mentoring and training)

v. the price is right.

How do you accomplish these five objectives?

i. the question being addressed is fundamentally important to the interests of the FS and their audience.

Have to make a very convincing argument as to why the question you are addressing is fundamentally important in both a broad sense and to the specific interests of the FS.

Specific interests are identified in the request for proposals (RFP) and have been prioritized by that program. They will require you to indicate how your proposed work addresses their priority topics (e.g., Sea Grant: “indicate which of the priority field(s) your proposal applies to.”).

Specific interest of NSF is to make a major contribution to a field of science (“Intellectual Merit” component) and have broader societal value (“Broader Impacts”, e.g., informing policy makers or resource management, education and outreach about a topic or a scientific field).

For NSF Graduate Fellowship, reviewers will be asked to identify and assess:

“What is the intellectual merit of the proposed activity?”

- How important is the proposed activity to advancing knowledge and understanding within its own field or across different fields?

- How well qualified is the proposer (individual or team) to conduct the project? (If appropriate, the reviewer will comment on the quality of prior work.)?

- To what extent does the proposed activity suggest and explore creative, original, orpotentially transformative concepts (i.e. new ways of doing science, new tools for doing science, or science education?)

- How well conceived and organized is the proposed activity? Is there sufficient access toresources?

However, any FS wants to support broadly influential work that testifies to the importance of the FS.

“In addition to addressing (FS-specific question), conclusions derived from this study will contribute to our broader understanding of (a broader question)”.

Reviewers are often not interested in or familiar with your specific question or interests (or even those of the FS!!). You have to educate the reviewers and FS why your question is important to them. Why is the work worth doing?

Indicate, when possible, that others have pointed out the importance of your question (from the literature, recent workshops: NSF, NRC).

Introduction must provide a clear context for the proposed work, conceptually and chronologically.

- What studies have led up to it?

- Summarize very briefly the history of the question

- Creates the impression this is an important question addressed by others

- Indicates where our understanding stands and how your question moves the field forward

ALL of these points above bear on the importance of,and your success at, articulating the “Intellectual Merits” (sensu NSF) nof your proposed research.

State explicitly by summarizing, “Thus, the intellectual merits of this study will be to…”

Curiosity-driven research needs increasing amounts of justification; so don’t hesitate to point out applied and practical spin-offs that could result from your work. Indeed, NSF’s emphasis on “Broader Impacts” explicitly requires you to identify borader societal benefits of the proposed research!

For NSF Graduate Fellowship, reviewers will be asked to identify and assess:

“What are the broader impacts of the proposed activity?”

- How well does the activity advance discovery and understanding while promoting teaching, training, and learning?

- How well does the proposed activity broaden the participation of underrepresented groups (e.g., gender, ethnicity, disability,geographic, etc.)?

- To what extent will it enhance the infrastructure for research and education, such as facilities, instrumentation, networks, and partnerships?

- Will the results be disseminated broadly to enhance scientific and technological understanding?

- What may be the benefits of the proposed activity to society?

- However, don’t be unrealistic in this context. Reviewers can spot overstatements very easily

- E.g., “these results will be used by resource managers and contribute to the conservation of this species”. Do not make such statements without stating explicitly how they would be used and how they would contribute.

State explicitly by summarizing, “Thus, the broader impacts of this study will be to…”

ii. you are one of, if not the, most appropriate persons to study this problem

This is a competitive process. FS can receive several proposals addressing similar questions.

- You must convince the FS and reviewers of your strong familiarity, background and expertise relative to the specific objectives of the study.

- Never compare yourself with others directly, let the reviewer do that.

Refer to previous work you’ve done in this field. Make reference to your publications and others to demonstrate your extensive knowledge of that field and question.

Refer to similar work conducted by your advisor and lab. Build the impression that your advisor and lab will provide you with all the necessary intellectual, logistical and technical (i.e. facilities) support necessary to ensure success of the proposed work.

Show preliminary data (i.e. GET preliminary data) and results, if relevant and possible.

- One can strengthen a proposal significantly by showing preliminary (usually, this means not yet published) data or results from previous studies (of yours!) that provide an important foundation for the work.

- Also demonstrates that you can, in fact, use the methods you propose to conduct manipulations, collect data, do required lab or statistical analyses.

If none of the above, your summary of the literature and the relevance of your questions will reflect your knowledge of the field (and this is reflected in the breadth and relevance of cited work).

iii. you have thought clearly about the problem and have developed the most appropriate approach and methodology.

Hypothesis-driven research is mandatory. It is difficult to get proposals of a strictly descriptive nature (“let’s see what’s out there”) funded.

State your hypotheses and state them clearly. Especially, present alternative hypotheses (helps to convey openness to alternative outcomes and interpretations).

- The most common criticism in a negative review is “it’s not clear what they are really going to do or test because their hypotheses weren’t stated”.

- State explicitly:

- the predictions of your hypotheses

- how the design of your study (observations or experiments) will directly test predictions of alternative hypotheses

- how you will interpret your results to test alternative hypotheses.

Second most common criticism in a negative review is “it wasn’t clear how the design of the observations/experiments would test their hypotheses”.

Third most common criticism in a negative review is “wasn’t clear how they would use their results to test their hypotheses”.

Indicate that you are using the most appropriate methods and reference previous studies that support this.

iv. you are not the only one to benefit intellectually from this project (mentoring and training)

Identify grad students, undergraduates and technicians who will be supported, involved and how they will benefit (i.e. what they will learn)

“Training” and “mentoring” indicates that FS is contributing to higher education, human resource development for that discipline

v. the price is right.

Describe cost savings (especially cost-sharing) wherever you can.

- Describe access to equipment and instrumentation

- Do not refer to cheap student labor, this is clear to any reviewer, but do refer to volunteer labor.

(5) Have colleagues both familiar and unfamiliar with your discipline critique an intermediate draft.

Experienced colleagues may help you avoid mistakes (inappropriate study design or analyses) and gain clarity (experience in conveying concepts clearly and more tersely).

Your intimate familiarity with your subject increases the gap between what you intend to convey and what the reader understands.

Recall that the constitution of review panels is diverse and that, at best, only one panel member will have expertise in your field.

- Colleagues outside of your discipline are best at flagging jargon and the need to define terms.

II. Organization

Often specified by the funding source; not always logical because proposal is designed for their use to market the study (e.g., “summary” and “significance” sections).

Follow the guidelines of the funding source completely.

- FS (e.g., NSF) usually publishes its guidelines for writing proposals.

- These guidelines specify content, length (# of pages per section), budget formats, etc.

- A proposal that fails to follow these guidelines may be returned to you, unreviewed (and unfunded!).

Most FS guidelines count figures and tables as part of the page limit, so you will need to strike an appropriate balance between words and data.

- Figures can clearly convey complex concepts (theoretical or study design) and conserve space.

- If you use figures, provide a legend that will allow the reader to understand what the data are all about (more than a typical paper).

Be neat. Appearance does count.

- A proposal that is well prepared and easy to read will help to win over the reviewer (I can personally attest to this!).

- A proposal that is sloppy implies that the investigator has low standards—and this will reflect badly on the proposed research.

- Use your software’s spell-checking function (no excuses for misspellings!).

Especially for longer proposals, like papers, use an outline format with headings, subheadings, and questions emphasized by specified fonts.

The instructions to authors for Ecology include the statement: “Write with precision, clarity, and economy.” This wonderfully self-illustrative sentence contains some of the most important instructions given to prospective authors, yet it is probably the most overlooked.

- You will always face page limits and good proposals convey more information per page.

Superfluous words slow down comprehension. We often write with the same verbosity permissible in conversational English.

- a conscientious author can easily eliminate these crutches from his/her manuscripts: Strunk and White (1979) in their excellent “The Elements of Style”, as well as Hart (1976), Day (1983), and Pechenik (1987). All illustrate superfluous expressions.

Revisit sentences to see if you can’t reduce them.

III. Details by section

Summary

The Summary (or Abstract) section of the proposal is critical.

- The first (and maybe ONLY) thing that the reviewer reads is your proposal summary.

- Must be clearly written so that even a non-specialist can see why the research is exciting and important.

- Have a colleague who is a non-specialist in your area read the proposal summary.

Introduction / Background

Here is where you lay out the big question, it’s importance and background leading to the question.

Present the system you will use to address the question and why that is a “model” or “most appropriate” system and state why (i.e. advantages of this system over others).

Present the more specific questions and hypotheses generated from those questions and a brief summary of your approach.

(2 and 3 not necessarily in this order!)

Feel free to use figures to clarify concepts here.

Methods

Link methods to questions and tests of hypotheses!! State why before you ever state what or how!!! You have no idea how much this irritates me!

Justify your methods. A critical aspect of a proposal concerns the methods you will employ to test your hypotheses. Two issues are of extreme importance.

- First, are you using the mostappropriate methods for the tasks to be done?

- Are you selecting your methods on the basis of “trendiness” rather than in terms of what method is actually the best for your purposes? (Reviewers may see a bright red flag).

- Demonstrate where others have successfully used your approach and where other approaches have failed.

- Indicate how your methods are more appropriate.

- Second, are you able to use, and capable of using, the method you plan to employ?

- Is the system amenable to the proposed method (e.g., manipulations, replication, experimental design in general)?

- If you are planning to bring new technology into your research program, you must establish credibility about your ability to master the necessary skills.

- If you propose to collaborate with another research group, request a letter indicating their eagerness to do so.

- If you propose to visit another lab to learn a new method, request a letter of invitation/support from the person with whom you’ll work, and include this letter in your proposal.

Briefly provide necessary background for methods / equipment / analyses that are new to the discipline.

Integrate the sampling and experimental design with the analytical / statistical design.

- Link the methods with how they will be used in a statistical analysis.

- Explain how genetic analyses will be conducted and used to test hypotheses

- What constitutes a replicate sample, how are they independent, is the number and size of samples sufficient? Fixed vs. random factors. Repeated measures. Multivariate analyses.

Again, use figures to describe experimental designs.

Interpretation of Results

Semantics: avoid using the terms “expected” or “anticipated”, suggesting that you have preconceived notion of what results “should” be (i.e. inherent bias).

Make clear how you would interpret all possible results of your study in the context of testing yor hypotheses

Generate hypothetical results (graphs) to show the kind of results that you would use in testing your hypotheses.

Citations

For very short proposals (e.g., NSF Graduate Fellowship), use footnote style and abbreviate each citation within a single paragraph (see examples)

“Naked mole rats are notorious for forming pink wriggly aggregations1,2,3.

1Bubba et al, 2004. PNAS 3:123-128; 2Bobo et al 2006. Behavioral Ecol. 21:2-8; 3Yada et al, 2007. Rat World 87:414-576.

Time Line

J

F

M

A

I. surveys1

II. Predator exp I2

III. Predator exp II3

IV. Analysis4

V. Ms preparation5

1notes…

2notes…

3notes…

Significance

-Summarize the important implications of your proposed research and how it

(1) contributes to the intellectual advancement of a discipline

(2)contributes to the objectives of the FS

(3)benefits society (e.g., informing management or conservation efforts)

Budget

-Follow very carefully the guidelines / forms provided you from the FS

-Look at examples submitted to that FS and others

-Understand overhead:

- the amount (on and off campus)

- what it applies to (e.g., not equipment – belongs to institution)

-Understand the definition of “equipment” (recently changed to $5000.00 at UC) vs. “supplies”

-Be conservative (i.e. pad for unanticipated costs)

Budget Justification

-explain why you need the personnel, equipment, travel you request

-get letter from field stations confirming costs and acknowledging availability and support facilities

For NSF Grad Fellowship there is also the “Personal Statement” and “Previous Research” pieces

- for personal statement, consider alluding to your personal web site.

Some Writing References:

British Ecological Society. 1978. A guide for contributors to the journals and symposia of the British Ecological Society. Journal of Ecology 66:1-13.

CBE Style Manual Committee. 1983. CBE style manual. Fifth edition. Council of Biology Editors, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

Day, R. A. 1983. How to write and publish a scientific paper. Second edition. ISI, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

Hart, J. F. 1976. Ruminations of a dyspeptic ex-editor. Professional Geographer 28:225-232.

Hurlbert, S. H. 1984. Pseudoreplication and the design of ecological field experiments. Ecological Monographs 54:187-211.

Pechenik, J. A. 1987. A short guide to writing about biology. Little, Brown and Company, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Strunk, W., and E. B. White. 1979. The elements of style. Third edition. Macmillan, New York, New York, USA.