Grant Writing: The Basic Process
Karen Young Kreeger
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For newly minted PhDs, two of the activities
that define your work are undoubtedly writing
papers for peer-reviewed
journals and submitting grant proposals. Both
processes, at this point in your career might
seem a bit hazy. No fear, there are many opportunities
for chemists at all stages of their careers as
well as in many sectors.
Show me the money
First, where do you start looking for the research
dollars? Peter
Dorhout, an associate professor of chemistry
at Colorado State University in Fort Collins,
says that the greatest amount of support for chemists
doing basic research comes from the
National Science Foundation (NSF). Other government
agencies funding chemists for fundamental and
applied projects include the Department
of Energy (DoE), the Department
of Defense (DoD), and the National
Institutes of Health (NIH). At NIH, chemistry-related
programs are related to biomedical research and
are diffused across all institutes.
Such other agencies as the Department
of Commerce (DoC) and the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
also support some chemistry research grants. The
national lab system also supports specialized
research for visiting chemists; for example there's
special money set aside for researchers to use
the synchrotron at Argonne
or the light source at Stanford,
or to perform experiments in laboratories with
special facilities like a radiochemical lab or
a special laser or neutron source.
Private foundations also support chemists, but,
says Dorhout, which foundation depends on your
research focus or perhaps the state in which you
live. Information about each foundation is typically
circulated by word of mouth, he says; so ask around
your department for ideas.
Industry also supports research at universities,
but it's obtained in a different way than with
private and government competitive grants. "You're
at a meeting and you give a talk and there happens
to be someone from Shell in the audience,"
explains Dorhout in an example scenario. "They
approach you and say: 'It seems like we're working
on a very similar problem and that you have something
that's hot.'" That type of funding involves
the university patent office or tech transfer
to set up some type of agreement, he adds.
Robert Rich, a program officer for the American
Chemical Society's Petroleum
Research Foundation (PRF) points out that
every agency has a different policy for accepting
proposals. PRF has several grant categories ranging
from one for new faculty within the first three
years of a tenure-track appointment to one for
undergraduate institutions to one that emphasizes
new and innovative ideas for tenured or tenure-track
faculty.
George Rubottom, program director for organic
chemistry at NSF, says that half the money that
goes to support chemists there goes through the
Division
of Chemistry. Within this division, programs
include organic and macromolecular chemistry;
physical chemistry; inorganic, bioinorganic, and
organometallic chemistry; and analytical and surface
chemistry. There are also programs for chemical
instrumentation, as well as other divisions that
fund chemists, such as materials research, the
biology directorate, and some programs in the
geosciences.
The Chemistry Division is a great first reference
for young chemists starting out but, says Rubottom,
they should be aware that there are other sources
for chemists at NSF. NSF also supports a five-year
grant that combines the research and educational
activities of scientists in the first years of
their employment. These proposals are sent into
the division and placed into the appropriate programs
and sent out for ad hoc reviews. But these grants,
unlike other mainstream grants, are also reviewed
as a group.
In addition, notes Rubottom, for the foreseeable
future the way new money comes into NSF is through
initiative funding, called focus areas-hot new
areas like nanotechnology, information technology,
and biocomplexity. "People should be very
aware of what they are because if their research
falls into this area, this is one way for an individual
to have essentially two proposals in the system
at the same time," says Rubottom. These areas
are listed on the NSF Web site.
DoD does support applied research for chemists,
notes Stephen Lee, a grants administrator in organic
and inorganic chemistry for the U.S.
Army Research Laboratory in Research Triangle
Park, NC. These areas include chemical weapons
research, as well as ways to protect soldiers
from chemical weapons, the safe demilitarization
of surplus munitions, and the destruction of toxic
wastes during restoration of old military compounds.
Lee recently wrote an article for the ACS
Younger Chemists Committee Newsletter about
the different types of grants that DoD supports,
including a Young Investigator Program that gives
special consideration to investigators proposing
research within five years of having received
their PhD. The article also explains how to best
work with DoD program managers. Lee advises that
his "greatest point for people applying for
research dollars from a military program is to
really engage the program manager about their
ideas and tune the work so it matches well with
the program managers' packages."
The Process
The process for applying for grants isn't similar
among all granting agencies. DoD for example,
says Dorhout, typically asks grant writers to
submit a white page (a type of preproposal), which
is a one-to-two-page statement of your research
idea, whereas, DoE and NSF don't require white
pages, but depending upon a particular program
they might require that you send in a preproposal.
Some NIH programs require a preproposal.
At PRF, says Rich, as proposals come in, they're
catalogued and assigned a number. Then the program
officers collectively decide into which technical
area the proposal falls in order to assign it
to a committee and appropriate program officer.
From then on the proposal, and if it becomes a
grant, will be handled by that PRF program officer.
Next, the program officer assigns the technical
reviewers. PRF uses a snail-mail review process
using experts in the proposal writers' field.
The reviews and proposals go to the advisory board,
which makes the final determination and ranking.
Once the advisory board has made its decision,
the ACS directors ratify the decision and the
grant becomes official. At PRF, in the Type AC
grant, those going to tenured or tenure-track
faculty member, 32 percent were funded last year;
for the type B, those for faculty at non-PhD granting
departments, 41 percent were funded; and for Type
G Starter grants, 36 percent were funded.
At NSF, says Rubottom, proposals that come into
the division are assigned to specific programs.
To find out what's going on in the individual
programs, researchers should really get in touch
with program directors, he advises. Much as with
PRF, the proposals are then sent out to a panel
of outside reviewers in the researchers' field.
NSF grant administrators then call all proposal
writers when the decisions are made about their
proposals, whether they are accepted or denied,
to call their attention to trends in the reviews.
Some of the more common comments by reviewers
include: 'Had this person had more preliminary
results this would have been a great proposal.'
So says, Rubottom, "we tell the grant writer
to try and get some preliminary results before
resubmitting." The acceptance rate for NSF
career grants over the past several years is about
20 percent and for other mainstream grants it's
25 to 30 percent, he notes. What has gone down
over the last several years is the rate of renewal
proposals, with about 50 percent currently accepted.
Rubottom also suggests that researchers could
become more familiar with the NSF grant system
by volunteering to be proposal reviewers. The
organic chemistry program he heads uses up to
900 reviewers in a given year, so there's plenty
of room for people to break into the system, he
notes. It's a great way for less experienced researchers
to get a sense of how people are writing proposals.
NIH's proposal review is a two-tiered process,
which differs from some other agencies. The Center
for Scientific Review provides scientific
review for most NIH grant applications though
panels of outside reviewers called study sections.
Scientific Review Administrators like Janet Nelson,
who handles the Metallobiochemistry study section,
select the scientific experts to serve on the
panels, administer the panel meeting, write up
the summary of the members' discussions at the
meeting, and send the scores and comments to the
applicants. From there, the proposal goes to the
individual institutes, where final decisions on
which proposals to fund are made. Program Officers,
who work closely with the Scientific Review Administrators,
handle the funded applications.
Because NIH has many different types of mechanisms
for funding research from broad-based alliances
to research-initiated grants, Nelson recommends
that applicants do some early legwork to help
match their research interests with that of the
agency. She urges applicants to contact the program
officer in the institute to which you plan to
submit your proposal and discuss how what you
want to do fits in with the mission of that institute.
She also recommends a keyword search on the Computer
Retrieval of Information on Scientific Projects
(CRISP) database of funded NIH projects to look
at what types of research have recently been funded.
Sage Advice
Now that you have some idea of the where to go
for the money and a roadmap for the general process,
you need some tips for writing the actual proposal.
Grant administrators point to professional society
workshops, books, and your colleagues for advice,
but are also quick to share a few helpful nuggets.
For Rich, the top five pieces of sage advice
that program officers can impart are:
- If you have a question, ask the program officer.
That's what they're there for. Don't assume
that program officers are so unapproachable
that you can't speak with them.
- Follow the directions precisely. Do not ignore
the directions. Do not pay attention to the
directions only some of the time. "I like
to tell the story of people that submit proposals
to us that are missing critical elements,"
says Rich. "For example the one person
who didn't put their name on the front of the
proposal." Or, in terms of formatting,
if your proposal is supposed to be no more than
10 pages and you write 25, you're not even going
to get considered, he says.
- Before you send your proposal into a granting
agency, show it to a number of your colleagues
and solicit their comments. Don't forget to
factor that into your timeline to meet the grant
deadline.
- A proposal that's finished just before the
deadline usually isn't. If you wait to the last
minute, Rich has found historically that those
proposals fare more poorly than those that PRF
receives earlier in the cycle.
- For researchers who are just coming out of
school or just finishing a post-doc, don't propose
an idea that's the same as what you were doing
in grad school or in your post-doc. You need
to show that you have some creative ideas of
your own. (Many grant administrators echoed
this recommendation. It's not a wise career
move and agencies aren't too excited about funding
derivative research, they say.)
Researchers need to be "resourceful in these
days that Uncles Sam isn't going to take care
of you in the way our academic grandfathers and
fathers were taken care of," concludes Dorhout.
So, he and others advise that researchers apply
for many grants, but make sure they carefully
tailor their ideas to the mission of the granting
organization. So, do your homework.
Karen Young Kreeger is a freelance science writer
based in Ridley Park, PA.
Related Reading
Burke, Jim and Carol Ann Prater. 2000.
I'll Grant You That: A Step-By-Step Guide to Finding
Funds, Designing Winning Projects, and Writing
Powerful Proposals.
Carlson, Mim. 1995. Winning
Grants Step by Step: Support Centers of America's
Complete Workbook for Planning, Developing, and
Writing Successful Proposals.
Hoffert, Stephen P. "Proposal Writing Services
Give Researchers A Competitive Edge," The
Scientist 12[2]: 12, Jan. 19, 1998.
Kreeger, Karen Young. "Winning, Managing,
and Renewing Grants: When All Else Fails, Follow
the Instructions," The
Scientist 14[21]: 31, Oct. 30, 2000.
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