Successful grant writing takes careful thought as well as considerable skill. Experienced
investigators appreciate just how much work and background development are required.
However, those new to the ‘game’ are sometimes under the misconception that if they
have a good research idea or it is clinically important, they are bound to succeed.
‘Do good science and the rest will follow!’ Unfortunately, this just is not true.
Successful grant writers appreciate three important points:
Don't take anything for granted!
Even if you have a superb track record and great ideas that could fundamentally change
a field, this is not an excuse for cutting corners and dashing off a poorly thought-out
submission. Grants require care. Sloppiness is obvious.
Put your energy into a few, well-crafted submissions
It does nothing for your morale, or reputation, to keep resubmitting poor applications
that fail. Reviewers and panel members have long memories.
The competition is tough
Success rates are low for most schemes, often less than 20%, sometimes even down to
10%. And your competition is stiff. It includes some of the finest people of your
generation, your most able contemporaries. So, to stand a chance of success you have
to give grant writing—and your competition—the respect it deserves.
When you submit an application, it is likely first to be screened by administrative
staff to ensure that it fulfils the basic requirements. Some grants fall at this very
initial hurdle. In some schemes, there might then be a triage or selection procedure,
to filter out the applications that are unlikely to succeed, so your submission might
not get any further than this. Then applications are sent for peer review, often from
international experts who might not know you and sometimes by people who might not
even have much expertise in your particular subspecialty of research. When these reviews
return, a panel of experts put together by the funding agency, will assess your application
with the comments of the reviewers to help them. In some schemes, you might be asked
to come to interview to defend your application in front of the panel. For others,
the decision is made directly by the panel. In both cases, one or two members of the
panel will be asked to speak about your application, perhaps for only a couple of
minutes.
This is the critical moment where your grant stands or falls. The panel members who
lead the discussion on your application have to be persuaded that it is worth pushing
for. If they are to be your advocates, they have to appreciate the quality of your
proposed research programme, why it is important and why it deserves support. This
just will not happen unless your submission has been written clearly and in a compelling
manner. Remember that panel members come from diverse backgrounds and there may not
be anyone who is an expert in your area of research. For example, your work might
be on molecular neuroscience, but the panel member leading the discussion might be
someone who specialises in neuroimaging. They have to ‘get’ your proposal if they
are going to convince the rest of the panel (often consisting of people from fields
other than neurology or neuroscience) that this is worth supporting.
Key reasons for success and failure
In my experience—as an applicant, reviewer and grant panel member—the key reasons
for success include the points in box 1.
Box 1
Ten top reasons for success
The application
Fits the Call or Fellowship scheme well
Is carefully crafted and polished over time, improved by colleague feedback
Is timely, pertinent and asks good—even crucial—questions for the field
Is hypothesis driven and intellectually stimulating
Is clear, readable and intelligible
Shows that you are passionate about this topic
Provides pilot data and follows credibly from established findings
Justifies sample sizes with power calculations
Is to performed in a centre of excellence
Builds on your track record
I will discuss some of these in more detail later but first it is also worth considering
some major reasons for failure. For me, these include the following:
The submission is unclear, written in haste or just poorly put together
Remember that it has to be easy to read and comprehend by reviewers who are extremely
busy. You might think that the text you have laboured over for hours will be evaluated
with great care. On many occasions, however, your applications will be speed read,
perhaps in less than half an hour, in a setting where the reviewer is vulnerable to
being distracted—on a train or a flight, at home with children running around or in
a busy office where there is always someone knocking on the door. If the text is not
crystal clear, what you think—or assume—is obvious will be missed. This is one reason
why it is essential to get your submission read by colleagues long before you submit.
Unfortunately, most people leave this to the last minute when it is usually too late.
No hypotheses or poorly articulated ones
This is a common reason for being shot down at a grant panel when your application
is discussed. It is surprising how many submissions just do not have explicitly stated
hypotheses. Goals and aims are not the same as saying what you are testing. When you
do state your hypotheses, they have to be signposted well.
Inadequate track record or expertise in this area
Collaborations with experts can help to get around this criticism, so think about
approaching collaborators within or outside your institution early and get then to
write a letter of support. In addition, try to get as much leverage as you can from
what you have already published.
Far too ambitious
A common criticism is that the applicant could not achieve all that is proposed in
the time available for the grant. There is a difficult balance to achieve between
promising enough and far too much. The key point is that all that is proposed must
be feasible within the time scale. Your reviewers have lots of experience and they
know what is practical.
Great ideas but no preliminary data
You have to convince reviewers that your proposal will work. If this is a completely
new approach, no matter how exciting it might be, the grant panel will require some
evidence for its credibility. When in doubt get as much pilot data as possible before
submitting.
Incremental research, not a step change
This is a difficult issue. If the proposal seems too conservative and incremental,
it might be rejected because it is not exciting enough and will not deliver sufficiently
novel findings. On the other hand, if it is too risky and ‘blue-skies’ it might be
considered a gamble. The best proposals incorporate a combination of both elements:
build incrementally on previous work—either by you or by the group you hope to join—but
also think about proposing a riskier, step change element. Remember though that blue-skies
ideas are good for only some parts of a submission but not for all of it.
Before you start
It is important that even before you start putting pen to paper you are clear why
you are writing this application. Motivation really does matter. Ideally, you will
be applying because you have some great ideas that you have thought about carefully
and really want to test. Furthermore, you have the energy and enthusiasm to pursue
this programme of work. In short, you should be motivated to make this work. You really
should not be writing an application just because your boss thinks it might be a good
idea or because there is a new Call which is vaguely in your area or simply because
you feel that it is worth a ‘punt’. Grant writing takes a lot of time and energy and
by the end of an application most people are drained. So think carefully about your
motivations before you even start. If you are not convinced or driven by this, it
is unlikely to succeed.
Does it fit the scheme?
Be careful about reading the specific requirements of the Call or Fellowship scheme.
Contact the funding agency, if necessary. Don't be frightened to discuss the proposal
you have in mind with one of the administrators there. They often have been in science
themselves and are very helpful if approached appropriately. Find out from them and
your colleagues about what sort of proposals have been successful before. Then check
whether you would have institutional support for applying to this scheme. Don't surprise
your boss by asking him or her to endorse your application at the last minute. Heads
of departments do not like surprises! It is well worth finding out what the institution
would be willing to commit to in terms of supporting you for this application and
the implications that this might have for the future. Finally, re-read the instructions
and be clear in your own mind that your proposal fits exactly what the scheme is designed
for.
What makes a good research question?
If you put this to leading researchers you are likely to get many different answers.
So ask them! You will learn a lot from the process and from interacting with them.
I think a good research question has to be obviously good to people from outside your
research area. It has to be big enough for others to appreciate immediately why anyone
should spend years of their life using large amounts of money from the public purse
or charities to answer such a question. For many researchers, the question also has
to be intellectually stimulating—if possible, thrilling! But at the same time a good
research question has to be one which is likely to be answered within the time frame
of the grant. It has to be a practical proposal, not something so grand that it would
take decades to unlock.
Don't rush it
Putting together a coherent and cohesive set of studies to answer your question is
not easy. Ideally, before you start to write you should have assembled a plan of possible
studies from which you need to cherry pick your best ideas for this particular application.
You need time to get comments and feedback from colleagues to see whether they are
convinced. This really does matter and the more experienced members of your department
or your collaborators will be able to give you helpful advice (figure 1), provided
you don't leave it until the last minute. It is vitally important to polish up an
application properly so that everything is crystal clear and cohesive. Remember also
that costings take time and may alter your proposal if it turns out that the sums
you require would be well above what the funding body is prepared to offer. Full Economic
Costing in the UK also adds to the final total and it is important to be aware for
which grant giving bodies this might be a factor.
Make it hypothesis driven
It is well worth jotting down what your hypotheses are, for your own sake. Most studies
are vulnerable to the criticism that they are ‘exploratory’ and do not have specific
hypotheses that are being tested. Even if your study is largely exploratory, make
some explicit hypotheses about what you might be directly testing, based on proposal.
It is absolutely essential that you write down clear hypotheses, unless the Call is
specifically for an exploratory study, which is very rare. ‘Fishing expeditions’,
no matter how good they might be, do not fare well with reviewers or grant panels.
I often use direct questions incorporating the hypotheses I want to test as subheadings
in an application. That way no one is in doubt about what the hypotheses are.
Writing the document: put yourself in the reviewer's shoes
While you are writing imagine how you would feel reading this material. The narrative
has to be absolutely clear and coherent, with a linear trajectory. No matter how scientific
or clinically applied your submission, remember that you are telling a story that
the reviewer has to get immediately. Moreover, as explained earlier, you have to appreciate
that many reviewers and even panel members might not actually be in your field of
expertise. For many schemes, particularly Fellowships, panel members will not be even
in your general area, so they need to understand why your case is so compelling and
important. This is why the overview and strategic vision must be both clear, as well
as exciting. Unfortunately most are relatively dull! One way to improve this is to
write the summary for lay people at an early stage. Unfortunately these usually do
not receive enough attention and are scrambled together at the last minute. However,
you would be surprised how often reviewers and panel members read these summaries
first to get an idea of what you are trying to do. Polish these well! It is well worth
the trouble.
The proposal also has to be intellectually exciting, even for the non-specialist.
Make the document easy to read in terms of its formatting. Avoid clutter, use figures
and boxes wherever you can. Try not to cram the entire document with dense text. Signpost
a new section clearly and consider stating the hypotheses for that section up front
with bullet points so they stand out and will not be missed. Use lots of paragraphs
to break up the text and to make it readable. Do not go over the word limit. Panel
members become particularly irritated if this is evident. Above all, you don't want
to hand them excuses to reject your application: because they do not understand it
well enough, it just does not seem very exciting or you did not stick to the rules
of the application.
Sample sizes
All studies need to consider a justification for the sample size. This is an issue
that can be relatively easy to address explicitly but you would be surprised how many
applications do not include a power calculation. For some, applications you need to
provide evidence you did this with a statistician. For others, you can do it yourself
using free software (eg, G*Power at http://www.gpower.hhu.de). Sometimes it is not
easy to provide a power calculation for certain types of research. If this is the
case, you need to explain why and ideally refer to a previous study which successfully
used a sample size like the one you propose in order to answer a related question.
Potential weaknesses of the proposal
All proposals are vulnerable to criticism. Some reviewer might consider the study
design to be inadequate to answer the question. Others might not be convinced that
alternative explanations for predicted results have been considered. You can try to
strengthen your proposal by considering these criticisms and building measures to
counter them, for example, adding further controls or by considering more carefully
the design and analyses. Think also about contingency plans and whether you should
explicitly discuss these. If your entire programme of research depends upon an initial
study being successful, you are vulnerable to the criticism that there is no plan
should it fail. Again, this is where early reading by experienced colleagues might
help you to head off the killer criticisms that a reviewer might raise. Don't be shy
to ask for their help. They might, for example, advise you how to avoid a linear,
sequential strategy by creating a more ‘parallel’ research proposal, with several
different studies converging to answer a research question.
Figure 1
Don't be shy to ask for advice from more experienced colleagues.
Use figures and illustrations
Many submissions consist of endless pages of text. Figures help to break up the appearance
and make the application more appealing to read. They also can be used to improve
the clarity of your proposal, to illustrate concepts or add flesh to the text with
a concrete example. Take care to write the figure legends well. These allow you to
reiterate points made in the text; saying it differently increases the likelihood
of a difficult point being understood. Figures are also essential if you want to show
off pilot data. A plot of the findings has far greater impact than a line in the text,
which is easy to miss.
Impact
This is an important trend for many grant funders. Ask yourself what your big idea
is. Are you going to fill a knowledge gap? Would anyone care? Is the proposal timely?
And how would it make a difference if you were successful? The societal, economic,
health, intellectual property and other impacts might be important in different ways
for different grant funding bodies. Understandably, many researchers feel the pressure
to make a case for their work being clinically important. However, it is important
also to appreciate that there is no point in simply gesturing towards ‘translational’
research. If your application is not applied directly to a clinical problem, don't
pretend. It annoys reviewers. Vision can nevertheless be displayed, in part, by spelling
out the next steps, for example, ‘If we find this biomarker/gene/imaging signature,
then we will proceed to developing clinical screening/mouse model/MRI protocol but
the resources for this lie outside the current application’.
For some grants, it is extremely important to explain how potential beneficiaries
might have the opportunity to benefit from your work. RCUK impact pages (http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/innovation/impacts/)
offer helpful guides. Box 2 also gives some important reasons for poor impact in proposals.
Dissemination and public engagement needs to be thought about early on. It is also
important to think about how you might facilitate ‘knowledge exchange’ which ideally
would be a two-way process, for example, between patient groups and your research
group.
Box 2
Characteristics of poor impact proposals
Lack of specificity on deliverables
What exactly will you have achieved at the end of the grant? How might it affect people
outside your field? What would be the wider impact?
Lack of consideration of broader beneficiaries and stakeholders
If your work has potential to have wider impact, don't be shy to mention these. It
can sway the decision making of the grant panel.
Proposal is too narrowly focussed
Is the potential for impact too narrow? If so, how might you widen it?
Too much focus on track record rather than what will be done
Make sure you devote sufficient text to the details of the project and articulate
the wider significance of this work.
Don't give the panel excuses to reject
Finally, try not to hand the panel or reviewers any reasons for rejecting you. I have
covered some reasons for panel irritation above. Some recurring themes in committee
discussions include the points in box 3, which might serve as a useful list to consider—and
reconsider—as you polish your application.
Box 3
Reasons for rejection by grant panel
No hypothesis
Far too incremental; not a ‘step change’
Dull, not sufficiently exciting
Great ideas but no pilot data
Great ideas but far too ambitious—impractical, given time and resources
Sample sizes not justified with power calculations
Proposal has too many potential weaknesses; insufficient controls
Does not have strong enough track record
Plans to work in a centre which has insufficient experience in this field
Unclear why this is interesting or what the impact of work would be
It should be obvious by now that writing a grant is a formidable endeavour. The low
success rates mean that it is simply not worth putting together an application that
has not been well thought-out or is assembled at the last minute. If you do have the
motivation, I hope the advice distilled into this short article will offer a little
assistance in getting you across the finishing line, with success.
Key points
Successful grant writing takes time and care, so plan well ahead of the deadline.
Proposals need to fit the call.
They should be clear and exciting, but also feasible to complete within the time frame.
Applications can be improved with advice from more experienced colleagues, so do ask
for help.
Ideally they should be hypothesis-driven, have supporting pilot data and justification
of sample sizes.
Their potential for impact on a scientific question, patient group or for Society
needs to be clearly stated.