Learnt lessons

Dear Colleagues,

In this communique I provide some basic advice on how to frame your competitive grant application. Perhaps it might be better to say “how to tell your story”, “how to sell your idea” or indeed “how to win over a skeptic” because that is what your task will be.

The advice contained here is an agglomeration  of what has been received in feedback sessions with MoE and MoSTI and in discussion with various people close to the grant process. In order to provide you some perspective, I have also added examples of advice given to staff at other universities by their grant experts (look for hyperlinks).

How to be disappointed

Here are some typical reasons for the rejection of MoSTI bids (same lesson for MoE applications can be learnt here):

Some of the reasons for rejection include what we might consider as very basic weaknesses e.g.

  • Lack of clear research objectives.
  • Too many research objectives for the funding period concerned.
  • Methodology is unclear (thus, the assessment panel cannot be sure that the objectives can be achieved).
  • The literature survey is either poor or does not give confidence about the relative importance of the project proposal, or does not establish the novelty of the proposed study.
  • Team members in the proposal are inappropriate for the objectives/methodologies proposed e.g. lacking in essential expertise; or members with no demonstrable contribution.
  • Equipment requirement is not well argued e.g. can some equipment be accessed/shared rather than new equipment bought? How can the assessment panel be sure of the budget estimates for equipment are as listed (supply quotations where possible).

 

The essentials

Establish your credentials

Experience counts: especially where funds are in short supply and over‐subscribed. If you do not demonstrate your capability with evidence, then it is likely that your application will be passed over. What previous projects have you successfully concluded? How significant were they (funding size? competitively won? industry‐engaged?)? What were the salient outcomes (papers? IP? postgraduates? Since postgraduate completions is a required outcome in the FRGS, what experience do you have in managing these? What is your publication track record? Use bibliometric data (citation counts; Journal Impact Factor; h-index) to enhance your credentials if you can. If, when you review your credentials, you find that you are lacking in this area (remember that you are competing against others many of whom will be highly credentialed), it may mean that you need to:

  • Involve a more credentialed researcher in the team. Do not simply choose someone because of credentials without regard to whether the person will be making a ”real” contribution. Inter-organizational collaborations are useful and if properly explained can add to an application but it may be difficult to have an Assessment Panel accept that there can be effective collaboration with someone overseas who is never on location. You will need to show how the collaboration will work if the person is not situated at the same location as you (e.g. are funds available  for   inter‐campus  visits/stays?   How  often   will  you meet?). Explain what the person will be contributing to the research objectives (see below).
  • Re‐assess whether it is too early in your career for you to be making competitive grant applications. You may have to start your career through some other funding mode. An exception to the situation may be that you have such a brilliant idea that the Assessment Panel is willing to downplay the importance of your credentials. But, how will they know that you have a brilliant idea? It will be in your pitch and making it stand out amongst the hundreds that arrive at MoE (see below).

Who are in your Research Team and what will they do?

If there are more than one person in your research team, fully explain the role of each team member (this cannot be done in one sentence.Why does the project need the person? What special skills do theperson contribute? What experience does the person bring (e.g. is the person an acknowledged leader in the field by virtue of publications? Is the person chosen because of experience in postgraduatecompletions?). Do NOT dilute your team by including people of little experience or credentials. Add a team member ONLY if it increases the credentials of your team or only if required expertise is brought in withthem.

 The project objective(s)

Have credible and achievable objectives. The objectives have to align with your project theme (title). A common fault with applications is that too many objectives are listed. This creates a sense of lack of focus and what is worse, may lead to a judgment by an Assessor that the objectives may not be achievable within project time. Another common problem is that objectives are not clearly stated. Here is a useful handout from a talk on how to frame objectives, problem statements and what the literature review needs to do about  them when applying for a grant in the FRGS.

Use the literature review effectively

The literature review needs to critically assess previous work and place your proposed work and its novelty in context. Just stating an idea and asking funds for it is not enough. Why should you have the funds and not any of the many others who apply? Is there something that gives your application an edge? Remember that the literature review in a grant application is not for demonstrating that you can collect and regurgitate information although this certainly is a practical necessity.
Budget carefully

Any grant Assessment Panel will be fully aware of “padding” in budgets so try and avoid that unless you are very good in this area. The Assessment Panel comprises peers in your field and you can be sure that they have an idea of what budget support is fair in your area of research. Give the Panel some comfort in your budget figures by providing quotations that back up the numbers in your budget categories. Requests for funding equipment are generally not favourably viewed – avoid large equipment requests: choose another research area, or work out a way to have access to another organisation’s equipment. Be very aware that a novice research team asking for a large grant sticks out and not for a good reason. Ask around (your peers in Malaysia; MoE or MoSTI) – try and establish what is the average sized grant from MoE/MoSTI in your research area. Base your project ambition(s) on that.

The application format, and your pitch

Make your application reviewer friendly. Try and imagine what questions might arise in a reviewer’s mind upon reading statements in your application and then ensure that an answer is available in places that will be easy to find or track to. Master the use of good paragraphing so that the flow or development of ideas is clear and easy to follow. Use summarizing waypoint markers such as in this section (the sub-headers in BOLD).

Make your writing interesting to read. Reviewing many applications in a short space of time is a tedious process. Create a receptive frame of mind in your reviewer or assessor by making your writing interesting or even arresting.

Make your pitch at the right level. Do you think that it is likely that an expert like yourself will be a member of the assessing panel that decides on your application? Given the breadth of the research areas that needs to be covered by each assessing panel it is highly probable that an expert in your area may not be on the panel. Pitch your application at a level appropriate to accommodate this reality or else what you write could be lost to the assessor.

Use charts. A picture tells a 1000 words. A flowchart to depict your research program is essential. It allows you to show the components and how they relate to each other.

Separate key points from details. It is difficult to make a good pitch for your project if you simply follow the application form. There is more flexibility in using attachments judiciously. Thus, place essential key information in the application form and make references to places in an appendix that provides details. For example, wwhen you introduce your research team –

>> You name the team members in the form;

>> You follow that by make statements on why they are essential in your team;

>> You could then point to attachments which give evidence to the statements.

Read and re-read your application.

Wear someone else’s shoes. Picture yourself as a Panel Member who will be assessing your application: You have many applications to assess. How much time would you allocate to your application as written or pitched? Is what was written interesting enough such that you would want to read everything that needs to be read or will the Panel member find some reason to place your application in the ‘reject’ pile?

Your application has to have the quality of being:

  • brief and yet complete

  • to-the-point

  • provides all the required information e.g. clearly state what the benefits of the research will be

  • interesting to read

Cut out all “padding” material, and use citations to point to information.

Peer review

You should view this as an opportunity rather than a chore. It is an opportunity to nominate someone to critically assess your work for flaws and weakness in order that it can be improved. An expert in your field if properly chosen may also be able to give you feedback on the novelty contained within your proposal (or the lack of it). Obviously, not everyone is going to be able to act as an effective reviewer and there is also the temptation to gloss over this step (such as nominating a “friendly” reviewer who one knows will not create any “problems”). The peer review nomination form provides some information on the characteristics of who might make a reviewer who will be most able to help you improve to your application.

 stethoscope

It’s a checkup
An example of what peer reviewers can be asked to assessed is available here. What can be assessed should be a big part of the information which you use to prepare/iterate your application.
Grants advice from another university

Those who follow my communiques closely will know that I look for and pass on to you, advice on developing grant applications from other universities, not because I lack confidence in what I say myself but because some of you seem to need convincing. Those who would use Nottingham Malaysia as an examplar for grant success will also need to pay heed to what they have done in their grant development

 process. In this issue, I recommend to you, the presentation by Prof. Andy Chan entitled “Common Shortcomings in Research proposal” (sic) or “How to Avoid Your Proposal Being Binned before it Was Evaluated” (sic). You will recognize many things in common between points made in that presentation and the points made above.

One of the vital keys to grant success: Iterate – draft and re-draft

Iteration: “build a rough version, validate it, then slowly build up quality” (Jeff Patton, 2007)

Work on how you describe, explain, and rationalize points in your application. A successful application for a competitive grant is obtained through many iterations and weeks (months) of work. A good idea that ends up in a research proposal will probably have been critically evaluated by a few  of  your  trusted  colleagues  who will have  helped  you refine and improve  your  idea.    People  who  write  grant  applications  often  fail because while they are very good at providing the minutiae of their research proposal, they are often poor at making a good pitch. Indeed many  an   application   loses   track  in   the  details  of   the proposed  investigation.

Time is an essential ingredient in developing a good grant application. Every forward thinking academic will have a few ideas kicking around in the kitbag and would working on them from time to time over the academic year(s). This is another way of saying that the route to success is not usually through writing grant applications in the last few weeks before submission date.

With regards,

Clem
Dean, R&D
04 Feb 2015