PEER Presentation
Writing winning grant proposals:
Neal Stewart
nealstewart@utk.edu
Posted on
http://plantsciences.utk.edu/stewart_research_ethics.htm
Prediction is difficult—
especially about the future
Yogi Berra
Outline
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Grant proposal 101
Timelines
Budgets
RFPs and program managers
Communication
Ethical considerations
Practical advice
Q&A
Why write proposals—especially
full-sized federal proposals?
• Get paid, do research
• Discipline encapsulated
– Thinking, planning, writing, and more planning
– Forces organization
– Forces scholars to design research
– Process for creating rigor in research
• Badge of honor-increases a scholar’s
“stock”
101 continued
• Most “regular” grant proposals get submitted
through the institution’s research or grants
office—typically by faculty
• The lead submitter is the principal investigator:
PI. Others can be collaborators or co-PIs
• Institution gets a “cut” of the budget: indirect
cost, F&A, or overhead (UTK = 45% or direct
cost)-more on budgets later.
Those who fail to plan, plan to fail
Ancient proverb
Communication and Task Timeline
Alert G&C
you’re submitting!
Day 60—LOI or preproposal accepted
RFP, RFA, FOA, BAA
To compete or
not to compete?
Initial planning and teambuilding
Start writing proposal
Send writing assignments
Day 45
Day 30
Day 20
Negotiate sub and team budgets
Issue deadlines for text
and paperwork
Check in
with sub and
team on
campus
Collect sub and
team narratives
Day 0-5
Day 7
Day 10
Day 15
G&C
submits
Submit
narrative
Budget and forms
submitted—all
paperwork completed
except for the narrative
Sub-contractor paperwork
completed and in to G&C
Everyone has a plan—until
they get punched in the face.
Mike Tyson
Communication and Task Timeline
Alert G&C
you’re submitting!
Day 60—LOI or preproposal accepted
RFP, RFA, FOA, BAA
To compete or
not to compete?
Initial planning and teambuilding
Start writing proposal
Send writing assignments
Day 45
Day 30
Day 20
Negotiate sub and team budgets
Issue deadlines for text
and paperwork
Check in
with sub and
team on
campus
Collect sub and
team narratives
Day 0
Day 5
Day 10
Day 15
G&C
submits
Check in w/
G&C
Budget and forms
submitted—all
paperwork completed
except for the narrative
Sub-contractor paperwork
completed and in to G&C
Final proposal
to G&C
It always takes longer than you
expect, even when you take into
account Hofstadter's Law
Hofstadter’s Law
by Douglas Hofstadter
Budget categories
• Personnel, e.g., grad students, postdocs, etc.
– Salaries and wages
– Fringe benefits
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Materials and supplies
Travel
Equipment
Other items
Indirect costs
Budget highlights
• Simpler the better
• Smaller the better
• Use real salaries and fringe rates of real
people if possible
• If the budget does not correspond to the
two items below it won’t get funded:
– Agency guidelines—in-range
– Scope of work
• Matching costs requirements (sometimes)
Anything that can go wrong
will go wrong.
Murphy’s Law
When to read the RFP, RFA, FOA
BAA:
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When you first know it exists
Then read it again
CALL THE PROGRAM MANAGER!
Before you submit your LOI or preproposal
• After your pre-prop is accepted
• Halfway through the proposal writing
• Five days before submission day
How do you eat an elephant?
One bite at a time.
Roles
• G&C staff: grants.gov-ify your budget and help
with matching costs, collect your documents and
put them in grants.gov THEY KNOW THE
RULES BETTER THAN YOU DO.
• You (me): communicate regularly with principals,
prepare killer narrative, and also refs, biosketch,
facilities and equipment, COI, C&P, summary,
collaboration letters, etc. Send docs to G&C
staff as soon as they are finalized.
Courage is resistance to fear,
mastery of fear – not absence of
fear
Mark Twain
Ethical considerations
• It is bad manners to invite someone to join your
proposal then un-invite.
• It is misconduct to include a collaborator’s
preliminary data, text, ideas and then un-invite;
e.g., if it didn’t get submitted in one competition
and you submit it during another competition.
• It is also misconduct to use information in
proposals (yours with collaborators) or others for
purposes other than those intended—they are
confidential documents.
Integrity is doing the right thing,
even if nobody is watching.
Unknown
Proposal maxims
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Chances are your proposal won’t be funded.
It most definitely won’t be funded if not submitted.
The reviewers’ main job is to find ways to eliminate
proposals
The best proposals win.
The best proposals enthral reviewers in the first few
pages.
A proposal that has been thrown together in a few days
looks like it.
There can’t be too much preliminary data.
There is no substitute for good ideas.
Pick the best collaborators.
Less is more.
A wise man will make more
opportunities than he finds
Francis Bacon
Comments on losing proposals*
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“A convincing case about____ has not been made.”
“It wasn’t clear how ____ experiments will be done.”
“Relatively little detail is provided on how the investigators plan to…”
“Crafting of the proposal is poor. The arrangement is difficult to
follow.”
“It is also not clear that the materials they have selected for study
are optimal for this type of analysis.”
“Thus, the work is not particularly novel and the panel could not
envision…”
“Yet this part of the proposal was the most poorly developed and
explained and seemed like this research activity would be largely
outsourced.”
“Overambitious…I doubt they can get the work completed…”
*Please note that these are actual comments from my own
proposals—just when I think I’ve made every mistake possible,
I learn that I was mistaken.
I failed my way to success
Thomas Edison
Advice
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Competition: go where they ain’t.
Be a competitor.
Be a good collaborator and co-PI.
Above all, practice ethics.
Diversify your portfolio.
Use all the tools in your box.