Overly Honest Grant Writing Workshop
(feel free to add)
(feel free to add)
Slide 1: Who is the audience for this workshop? Those pitiful peons from non-ivy schools. For the purposes of this presentation, Stanford and UCSF are considered Ivy League.
Slide 2: Read the funding opportunity announcement. 75% of your problems will be gone if you read the funding opportunity announcement. 90% of you still won’t do it.
Slide 3: I know you think you need to write the grant first before doing the budget. But there is no way this budget is enough to pay for what you need to win the grant. So just do an imaginary budget.
Slide 4: What is effort? Nobody knows. It doesn’t matter. Just put whatever will fit in the budget.
Slide 5: Is the supporting documentation important. Don’t tell @azfaust this but No. Almost nobody cares. Have someone else write these parts for you.
Slide 6: Specific aims page? @mnitabach said he’ll review SA pages for anyone from any field. Send it to him!
Slide 7: Also, work with your research development specialists for goodness sake.
Slide 8: Significance: Align your work what field already thinks is important. Use reviews from past year to id questions and then figure out how your work fits in. It’s easier to convince someone what you are doing is important if they already think it is important.
Slide 9: Innovation: If they like what you are doing they think it will be innovative. If they don’t like it, they will think it is boring. To fix innovation you need to fix your significance.
Slide 10: Research strategy: if you can’t demonstrate that you have done the experiment before have either a collaborator who has or core involved with that aim. (now this is just good advice)
Slide 11: Rigor? Not going to make a dent in how your reviewers feel about your grant.
Slide 12: If you don’t discuss potential problems and alternative approaches, just don’t submit the grant. Otherwise you are wasting everyone’s time.
Slide 13: Yes, have colleagues read your grant. But don’t assume that your colleagues liking the grant will mean that the reviewers like the grant. Same holds true for any internal review panel.
Slide 14: Don’t take reviews personally.
Slide 15: Yes, you can submit the same grant to multiple funding agencies at the same time.
Slide 16: Quantity >>>>> Quality
Slide 17: Quantity -> Quality (you simply get better at something the more you do it. So if you want to get better at writing grants, write more grants)
Slide 18: Best grants/science sometimes don’t get funded.
Slide 19: Really, just submit more grants. Apply to everything and anything that you can. Rinse, repeat, ad nauseam until someone gives you money.
Slide 20: Best time to get a second grant? After you just got the first grant because if one thing science loves it is the Matthew Effect.
