The Grant Development Process

This week, ORDE kicked off our 2020 Virtual Grant Writing Symposium, with an e-Seminar on the Grant Development Process with Dr. Chris Phiel, Associate Professor of Integrative Biology, serving as our Faculty Expert.

Oftentimes, people think that all there is to grant-writing is finding a grant, writing a proposal, and submitting that proposal. But, to truly be competitive for a grant, it takes engagement in a more comprehensive grant development process, as outlined below.

Literature & Fund Search:

The first step of this process is to search for the grants that might be a good fit for you and your research. It's a good idea to start assessing funding opportunities when you are narrowing in on your next research project and conducting your literature review. If you wait to look for funding opportunities until you have a fully developed project, you will create more work for yourself as you try to tailor your work to the program announcement on the back end.

ID and Research Sponsor:

Once you've identified a sponsor and program for your research project, it's important to do your homework. What is the mission and vision of the agency? What are their priorities? What have they funded in the past? Who are their reviewers? What is their review process? Knowing the answers to these questions will allow you to craft a proposal that is in line with and speaks to the agency's goals.

Work with the Program Officers:

Many funding agencies have POs who serve as the agency's liaison for researchers. The POs are responsible for making sure the agency is funding the best research and most important research aligned with the agency's goals. The PO is an important person to talk with as you develop your research to make sure that you and your research are a good fit!

Hone Project:

Once you've done your research on the agency and talked with a PO about what you can do to ensure that your project is a good fit, make the revisions and adaptations necessary to ensure that your proposal will be competitive.

Revise/Resubmit:

There's a reason why the image above is in a cycle instead of a line. Most times, researchers do not have their proposal funded in the first go-round. The good news is that resubmissions have a much higher rate of being funded. So, be prepared to re-work and resubmit your proposal, and remember the best-funded researchers have also generally been the most rejected.

To learn more about this process, I encourage you to watch the recording of our e-Seminar: The Grant Development Process.