grant proposals – Strategic Grantsmanship

Hyperlinks in a Grant–Yes or No?

Hyperlinks provide a clean, efficient way to offer readers additional information or clarifications of key ideas in our prose, and they allow us to keep our missives targeted and brief. However, the NIH holds two things sacrosanct–page limits and reviewer anonymity–and both are potentially violated by the use of hyperlinks in grant applications.

Hyperlinks provide a clean, efficient way to offer readers additional information or clarifications of key ideas in our prose, and they allow us to keep our missives targeted and brief. However, the NIH holds two things sacrosanct–page limits and reviewer anonymity–and both are potentially violated by the use of hyperlinks in grant applications.

New Grant Samples! Get Them While They Are Fresh!

The confidential nature of research grants poses a challenge for new writers and researchers who are unfamiliar with grant proposals. The best way to learn how to write grants—by far—is to start writing grants as part of a team with experienced grant writers. This allows one to learn while doing under the tutelage of those who have honed their skills writing proposals for a variety of projects and funders. And, as I have said before, serving as a peer reviewer should be a required experience for every writer of grants.

For those unable to enter grant writing through these tried and true avenues, or for grant writers seeking to better understand what a funder’s “ideal” proposal looks like, sample grant proposals can prove quite valuable…and extremely hard to come by. For obvious reasons, these proposals are confidential. Getting a mentor or a colleague to share a proposal can seem a major victory, until you start asking yourself some key questions: Was this project funded? What were reviewers’ comments? What worked (and is worthy of emulation), and what did not? How old is this thing?

For all of these reasons and more, vetted samples of funded proposals can be invaluable to new writers of grants. Fortunately, some researchers share their funded proposals via funders’ web sites. After all, funders want applicants to understand what they are looking for so they can receive high-quality proposals.
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4 Submission Strategies (Easy!)

“The submission process is the culmination of weeks and months of hard work by you and your team. Although you may feel “so done” with it all, submission is not the point at which to get careless and leave things to the quiddities of fate. Follow the simple rules outlined here and you will find submissions less likely to induce anxiety.”

For some, grant submission induces more anxiety than the writing of the proposal itself. I am sympathetic. I have been writing, editing, and consulting on grants for many years, but before pressing “submit” I compulsively check fonts, measure margins, and scrutinize PDFs for possible errors caused by document conversion. These are the things that keep me up at night, so today I have some brief grant submission strategies based on questions I have recently been asked.

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