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Getting Science Grants by Dr. Thomas R. Blackburn: A must read for anyone involved in science grants
As a research scientist, your ability to win outside funding has never been more important. Your potential to attract resources can often make the critical difference when you are being considered for appointment, tenure, and promotion in your profession.
Getting Science Grants is your hands-on guide to writing compelling proposals that will attract funding. This book provides a step-by-step process for writing proposals to support your research projects while it offers you an insider's look at the motivations and inner workings of the scientific grant making community.
Visit our Book page or read reviews, order this popular book online, or view a PDF file brochure on Getting Science Grants.
"Insightful college and university deans will provide a copy of this book to all recently hired science faculty. The author, who has long experience as college science professor, granting agency program officer, and proposal-writing coach, has laid out the main items that every grant applicant (novice or not) needs to bear in mind."
Journal of Chemical Education
Here's what you'll find in the book Getting Science Grants
Click on the links below to read a synopsis of the topics covered in our book.
- How research funding works
- Researching funding sources
- The title, the abstract and the narrative
- Budgets and supporting information
- Achieving Excellence
- Post-Submission Strategies
- Managing Your Grants
How Research Funding Works
In this section we discuss the four stages of proposal review. We explain the scoring system, proposal ranking and funding rates from an insider's viewpoint. We offer concrete suggestions on how you can use this information to strengthen your future grant proposal efforts.
We discuss the difference between reviews and rankings, how tie-breaker criteria work, and the earmarks of an excellent proposal.
Learn how to be realistic in your efforts without playing it safe. We help you to make clear your work's impact and the how it meshes with the aims of the grant program. We also offer suggestions on how to work effectively with a co-investigator.
Researching funding sources
In this section we discuss topics such as: search engines and their dysfunctions; the importance of talking to agencies; and funding sources beyond agencies. We help you to match agency priorities with yours.
This chapter also addresses the special case of research at primarily undergraduate institutions.
The title, the abstract and the narrative
In this section we offer practice in writing titles and more. We discuss how to craft the abstract for your proposal and why it is crucial. We offer suggestions on how to improve your narrative, bibliography, impact statement, hypotheses and methods, and we discuss the importance of non-technical impacts of your project. We address getting a reality check on your proposal before it is submitted.
Budgets and supporting information
How much should you ask for? Major budget categories that are discussed in this section are: salaries, capital equipment, travel, indirect costs, and miscellaneous costs.
Read up on cost sharing, budget justification, timelines, your CV, and the institutional setting.
Learn about ethical and strategic considerations in recommending reviewers, reporting on pending proposals, attaching appendices and add-ons, and dealing with length limits and deadlines.
Achieving Excellence
What are the earmarks of a "Poor" proposal, a "Fair" proposal, and a "Good" proposal? What do reviewers mean by "lack of focus?" How does your writing style help or hurt your proposal?
The heartbreak of "Very Good" proposals and how to mend it. "Excellent:" free of major flaws, or is there more to it?.
We offer concrete strategies to help you write the very best proposal possible to maximize your success rate.
Post-Submission Strategies
What are post-submission strategies? Crafting and reporting on parallel submissions, doing research without grants, and keeping up to date. In this section we help you to move beyond the denial of funding and profit from it.
Managing Your Grants
Keeping track of money, time, and people. How to report, publish, and handle proprietary information.
This chapter also discusses dealing with unforeseen developments, and provides information on transferring grants, using grants for capital equipment, changes in the direction or emphasis of your research, no-cost extensions and writing your next proposal.
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