How to Prepare to Write a Proposal VPR Office of Proposal Development Presentation for MALRC Lucy De

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How to Prepare to Write a ProposalVPR Office of
Proposal DevelopmentPresentation for MALRC
Lucy DeckardL-deckard_at_tamu.eduJune 27, 2006
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OPD MALRC Seminar Series

• How to look for funding opportunities and
  background an agency (May 30)
• How to evaluate and analyze a potential funding
  opportunity (June 6)
• Logistics of producing a proposal (June 13)
  Phyllis McBride
• How to write a Project Summary (June 20)
  Phyllis McBride
• How to prepare to write a proposal (June 27)

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Preparing to Write

• Research agency
• Research program
• Develop detailed outline
• Research literature and previous work
• Generate preliminary data, if needed
• Develop collaborations, partnerships, support, if
  needed
• Line up institutional support, if needed
• Line up colleagues to edit your outline and
  proposal
• Generate schedule for producing your proposal

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Collaborations/Partnerships

• Work on these before you start writing
• Be clear about roles of collaborators and
  partners
• Establish split of resources
• For TAMU collaborators, agree on budget split
• Be sure collaborators and partners get something
  out of participating in the project
• If you need a letter of collaboration, offer to
  write a draft for your collaborator to edit
• Include specifics on what they will do and
  support they will provide
• Explain who the collaborator is and their
  motivation

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Institutional Support

• Is cost sharing (matching) required?
• What type? (Cash, in-kind?)
• What rules apply?
• Are other resources required?
• Work to set these up early
• Typically start with your Dept. Head and move up
• If specific facilities required, work with
  facility provider
• Determine supporting documentation needed
• Research Foundation can help

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Line up Editors

• Look for colleagues who have been funded by
  agency to which you are applying
• Talk to them early
• Ask colleagues to review your detailed outline
• Look for someone who will be brutally honest

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Set up a Schedule to Produce Your Proposal

• Work back from deadline
• Allow at least 4 days for routing
• Start budget early
• See Logistics of Producing Proposal Session 3

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Structure of Proposal

• Often dictated by solicitation or other agency
  document
• NSF Grant Proposal Guide
• NIH PHS 398
• Also guided by evaluation criteria

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Must Convince Reviewers

• Your proposed research should be funded
• Its important and supports the agency mission
  and program goals
• Its exciting
• It has a good chance of succeeding
• You are the person who should conduct the
  proposed research
• You are knowledgeable and well-qualified
• You have the support and resources required

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Introductory writing tips

• Summary and introduction are key
• May be all reviewers read
• Must excite and grab the attention
• Reviewers will assume errors in language and
  usage will translate into errors in the science
• Dont be overly ambitious in what you propose,
  but convey credibility and capacity to perform

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Introductory writing tips

• Sell your proposal to a good scientist but not an
  expert
• Some review panels may not have an expert in your
  field, or panels may be blended for
  multidisciplinary initiatives
• Agencies reviewers fund compelling, exciting
  research
• Proposals are not journal articlesproposals must
  be user-friendly and offer a narrative that tells
  a story that is memorable to reviewers

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Following agency guidelines

• Read solicitation and/or proposal guide carefully
  for formatting requirements and follow
  scrupulously
• Font and font size
• Page limits
• Biosketch formats
• Citation format
• Avoids disqualification of your proposal
• Avoids irritating reviewers

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Make your proposal easy to read

• Reviewers often have 8 or 10 proposals to read
• Use white space, underlining, bold, bullets,
  figures, flowcharts to make main points easy to
  find
• Put main idea of sections and paragraphs up front

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Proposal Sections Examples

• Project Summary
• Project Description/Research Narrative
• Goals/Objectives/Specific Aims
• Introduction/Overview
• Background and Significance
• Approach/Methodology
• Research Plan
• Preliminary Data
• Broader Impacts (NSF)
• Literature Cited
• Budget
• Budget Justification
• Biosketches
• Funded Projects
• Equipment and Facilities

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Goals/Specific Aims

• State specific, measurable goals of your project
• Tie to program/agency mission and goals
• If hypothesis-based research, state your
  hypothesis
• Discuss expected outcomes

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Introduction/Overview

• Provides a framework for the reviewer
• Remainder of proposal will flesh out this
  framework
• Opportunity to make important points up front
• Communicate your excitement!

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Background/Literature Review

• Spend some time researching this
• This section should tie closely to your proposed
  research
• What are the holes in current knowledge that your
  work will fill?
• How does your research extend and advance
  knowledge in the field?
• Do not be dismissive of previous research
• Be thorough in citing important work but be
  concise

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Significance

• Explain explicitly why proposed research is
  important
• Tie to agency and program goals
• Relate to review criteria
• Make this easy to find

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Preliminary Data

• Understand the expectations of the agency and
  program
• How much preliminary data is expected?
• Higher risk research will require more
  preliminary data
• Less experienced researchers will generally need
  more preliminary data
• Preliminary data should strengthen reviewers
  perception of your chance of success

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Approach/Research Plan/Methodology

• Be very clear about how you will accomplish your
  stated goals and objectives
• Include details
• What, specifically, will you do when you get the
  money?
• Schedules and milestones may be helpful
• This is especially important if you are a
  relatively new researcher
• Address any potential dead ends, roadblocks,
  show-stoppers and how you will deal with them
• Avoid ambiguous terminology be very specific!

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Be Specific About What you Will Do

• Actual review comment
• The PI is well-qualified to perform the research.
  He has published substantial archival journal
  articles in the area of research proposed, and
  worked in strong research groups at University
  1 and University 2. The proposed work builds
  on his prior experience, and, given the vague
  nature of the proposed work, is nearly guaranteed
  to besuccessful.

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Connect narrative text to budget

• Budget categories are defined by the funding
  agency
• Be sure activities discussed in narrative are
  reflected in budget
• Connect narrative text to the budget to ensure
  appropriate balance and proportion,
• If a budget justification section is requested,
  use it to complement and deepen the narrative
  detail

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Beware of Boiler Plate

• Thinking of proposal narrative as boiler plate
  will result in a mediocre, disjointed proposal
• Begin each proposal as a new effort, not a copy
  paste
• Be very cautious integrating text inserts
• Strong proposals clearly reflect a coherent,
  sustained, and integrated argument grounded on
  good ideas

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Project assessment and evaluation

• How will you know if you were successful?
• Describe what will be measured in order to assess
  how well project met each of its objectives
• Who will conduct assessment?
• Discuss logistics
• Formative assessment conducted throughout
  project and results fed back to improve project
• Summative assessment final assessment at end of
  project

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Project assessment and evaluation

• How will you know if you were successful?
• Describe what will be measured in order to assess
  how well project met each of its objectives
• Who will conduct assessment?
• Discuss logistics
• Formative assessment conducted throughout
  project and results fed back to improve project
• Summative assessment final assessment at end of
  project

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Craft of grant writing web sites

• http//cpmcnet.columbia.edu/research/writing.htm
• http//nextwave.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/19
  99/08/27/1
• http//grants.library.wisc.edu/index.html
• http//www.research.umich.edu/proposals/PWG/pwgcom
  plete.html
• http//www.asru.ilstu.edu/grantwritingseries.htm
• http//grants.nih.gov/grants/grant_tips.htm
• http//www.epa.gov/seahome/grants/src/title.htm
• http//www.nsf.gov/pubs/2004/nsf04016/start.htm
• http//www.aecom.yu.edu/ogs/Guide/Guide.htm
• http//www.awag.org/Grant20Seekers20Tool20Kit/i
  ndex.htm
• http//www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDet
  ail/assetid/23947?fulltexttrueprintyesprintye
  s
• http//www.pitt.edu/offres/proposal/propwriting/w
  ebsites.html

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Interpreting Reviews

• If you are funded..
• If not.
• Put the reviews away for a few days
• Then take them out and read carefully
• Call the program officer for more feedback
• Evaluate if you should resubmit

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Interpreting Reviews Planning to Resubmit

• Were certain issues mentioned consistently?
• Plan how to address those issues
• Did the reviewers misunderstand your proposal?
• Plan how to make your text more clear
• Was no clear issue mentioned?
• May not have excited reviewers enough
• May not be an area they wish to fund now
• May not fit into their research portfolio
• Many funded proposals were funded after multiple
  submissions intelligent perseverance is
  the key!

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Semester-long Proposal Workshop

• Taught by Phyllis McBride
• Helps step you through the proposal process
• At the end of the semester, you will have a
  ready-to-submit proposal
• For more info, see http//opd.tamu.edu/people/seme
  ster-long-grant-writing-workshop
• or contact Phyllis at pmcbride_at_vprmail.tamu.edu
  or
• 862-4183

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• Good luck and let us know if we can help you!
• Office of Proposal Development
• http//opd.tamu.edu/