Avoiding Red Flags in Your Grant

A couple of weeks ago, one of our faculty and an experienced reviewer for the NSF talked about things to avoid when putting together a CAREER grant application. He explained that as a reviewer, he was given a short orientation before the review meeting where they identified red flags in proposals that might signal to the panel that the grant was not in line with the NSF's goals or preferred approach within the particular directorate in which they were reviewing.

NSF Red Flag Words:

• Develop
• Characterize
• Evaluate
• Optimize

The reviewer explained how the NSF liked to fund research projects that are hypothesis driven and that make clear contributions to their particular field, driving it forward. The trouble with the red flag words is that they get away from the NSF's goals of good, hypothesis-driven, science. They aren't necessarily interested in a research project that is applied, and might use words such as "develop." In the same way the NSF is not interested in its researchers characterizing, evaluating, or optimizing in their project objectives, they want the researcher to pose a solid hypothesis that gets at a core question in the field and then they want to understand how the PI will conduct an experiment(s) to answer that question. It's also important that researchers not suggest a "test and see" approach where there is no clear hypothesis and the researcher seems to propose to throw things at the wall to see what sticks, in a manner of speaking.

To broaden this conversation, although some agencies may not identify particular flag words for reviewers, many agency reviewers go into grant reviews with some in mind.  Your job, as the grant writer is to research the sponsor, including understanding background and goals, and to talk to a Program Officer. This can allow you to intuit what the red flags are and to not only avoid them, but to incorporate the language the agency wants. In doing this, you can show that your project is closely aligned with what the agency is looking to fund.

Resources
What are potential red flags when you are reviewing proposals? - Grant Space
5 things you should not do in your grant proposal - about.com