- Title
- Conform to the funding agency’s guidelines for titles (if there’s a limit on the length of the title, for instance).
- Make the title an accurate statement of long-term goals for your proposed research project.
- Include keywords in the title.
- Abstract
- Make your abstract simple, accurate, interesting, and nonprovocative for those who might not understand your research.
- Include keywords in the abstract.
- Think of the abstract as a thumbnail sketch of the entire proposal.
- Budget and Budget Justification
- Use the budget forms and categories developed by the funding agency.
- Make your funding application reasonable for the project, for the agency (don’t ask for more than the maximum award), and for your level of experience.
- Address all requests for budget justifications, carefully defining all funds and time to be spent on the project.
- Explain any appearance of overlap with other funding sources.
- Cost-share for services and equipment when possible.
- Delineate all personnel costs (including fringe benefits, if appropriate), direct costs, and indirect costs.
(For more information, see Research Budgeting.)
- Biographical Sketches
- Include biographical sketches for the principal investigator and others who are critical to the project (co-investigators, collaborators, consultants, researchers with special skills).
- Highlight their relevant accomplishments, training, experience, grant support, and publications.
- Research Plan
- Formulate your research plan to include:
- Specific aims of what you expect to accomplish (~5% of the application)
- Background and significance of why the work is important (~10-15%)
- Preliminary data (~25%)
- Research design and methods based on the experiments you will conduct (~55-60%)
- Formulate your research plan to include:
- Clearly state your research objectives.
- Present a strong, testable hypothesis.
- Provide background on the state of the field, including a thorough but brief review of the literature relevant to your project, your previous work on the topic, and the work of likely reviewers.
- Highlight your own experience and publications in the area of research as well as that of your collaborators, methodology and equipment available for your use, and any unique approaches you intend to take.
- Emphasize the practicality of your proposal in terms of methods known to you or easily learned, available preliminary data, and adequate resources to conduct the proposed research.
- Discuss expected outcomes (This is what I expect to find) and contingencies (Here are some alternative outcomes or problems that might occur and how I plan to deal with them) for all experiments. Include a clear hypothesis, the rationale for doing the experiment, and the exact protocol you plan to follow. The experiment title should match one of your specific aims.
- Subject Welfare
- Adhere to all relevant guidelines, including those of the local institution, the funding agency, and national or international government agencies.
- Be clear about the appropriateness of the species involved in your research, the number of subjects, treatments, and any special conditions.
- Letters of Recommendation / Agreement (if appropriate)
- Determine whether such letters are required or optional.
- Provide the letter-writer with specific background information about the project.
- Supplemental Materials (if appropriate)
- Determine whether the funding agency will accept supplemental materials.
- Never use supplemental materials to circumvent page limits on the application.
(Source: Grantspersonship: An Instruction Manual by Beth A. Fischer and Michael J. Zigmond, copyright 2005. Used with permission.)
