Structuring Your Project Overview

Grant reviewers report that they tend to know if a grant proposal will be any good or not after reading the Project Overview. If this is true, this means that your Project Overview, Specific Aims, or any opening summary or abstract is crucial to the success of your proposal. Your reviewer's feeling toward what you put in this crucial page will determine whether or not they are excited to turn the page.

If they're excited to turn the page, congrats! you've piqued their interest. They think the problem you're solving is important enough, your approach is innovative enough, and your work is interesting enough that they want to know how you're going to do it all. If they're not excited to turn the page, they probably still will do it out of obligation to the Program Officer and to their colleagues to whom they've committed to thoughtfully review your boring proposal. But, now, whereas you had some momentum if they were excited to turn the page, now you're fighting an uphill battle to turn it around and get them into your project. But, chances are this will not work.

Now, first off, it's essential that your project be great; there is no way to talk up a mediocre project in a proposal and fool reviewers. The point is that even when you have fantastic research, your Project Overview really can make or break your chance of getting funded, so what can you do to make sure your reviewers are excited to turn the page after they read it?

Create a hook
As with many types of writing, it's important to grab your reader's attention right off the bat. In a proposal, this is often done by showing how big and bad the problem is that you're trying to solve. What are the consequences of not doing this work? Often PIs assume people know why it's important to solve the problem, but don't assume. Spell out the problem and describe why it needs to be confronted or solved now.

Describe the cutting edge
In addition to knowing your problem inside and out, you are also steeped in the literature and research surrounding your topic. But, again, don't assume your reviewer is immersed in that same literature. Use your brief discussion to summarize the cutting edge research in your area and use this summary to build the case for why your project is the next best step in that cutting edge research.

Define the gap
Part of building your case with the current research is highlighting what is missing from it. Identify the gap in the research that you want to fill and make a case for why that gap needs to be filled now. What difference will it make?

Show how your research makes a difference
Until this point, you have been artfully building the case for your research. Now is the time to quickly show how your project is the answer to the large need in your area that everyone has been waiting for. Describe what you want to do briefly and how it will solve or contribute to solving your big problem.

Share the vision
Certainly, your project, amazing as it is, will not be the end all in research. So, end your Project Overview by laying out the vision for the research. What does this project allow us to do or what direction will it take us in and what's possible once we're there? Use the closing of your Project Overview to inspire your reviewers with your vision.

Resources:
Crafting a Sales Pitch for Your Grant Proposal - Robert Porter
The Anatomy of a Specific Aims Page - Bioscience Writers