The possibilities to obtain a grant after finishing your PhD

1
The possibilities to obtain a grant after
finishing your PhD

• Ermo Daniëls
• Advisor Research Innovation Policy
• Maastricht University
• Centre for Contract Research

2
Content

• Why should we write grant proposals?
• Structural funding strategy.
• How to write grant proposals.

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Why should we write grant proposals?

• Direct government funding for universities
  decreases
• Growing importance of indirect government funding
  (Funding agencies, FP7, etc.) and contract
  research funding
• Acquiring indirect government funding and
  contract research funding is required to maintain
  current level of financing

4
Structural Funding
10
Fund?
Successrate structural research financing (100)
Proposal Preparation 40
Best Practice
Project Management 50
Cash Cow
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Structural research funds (10)

• Select a limited amount of structural research
  funds that match your research and become (both
  individually and as a research group) good at
  them!
• National funding agencies (NL NWO, ZONMW,
  SENTERNOVEM)
• Private Funds (NL Heart Foundation, KWF, etc.)
• FP7
• NSF/ NIH
• New funding opportunities (Dana Foundation,
  Welcome Trust, etc.)

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Preparing the research proposal (40)

• File research proposals regularly, make sure you
  are well informed and learn from both negative as
  well as positive feedback in reviewer- and/or
  evaluation reports.
• Develop best practices!
• Whenever possible, take part in committees
  and/or evaluation panels.

7
Project management (50)

• Grant suppliers will like to cooperate with you
  again when they see that the project is in safe
  hands (objectives are being realised within the
  financial/administrative framework).Voila, a
  Cash Cow!
• Have a good project start by organising an
  elaborate kick-off meeting and make clear
  beforehand
• Agreements with respect to tasks and expected
  results
• Financial/ administrative and juridical
  agreements
• Monitor the progress of the project regularly
  (and adapt to it)

8
How to write grant proposals?

• Questions
• How does a grant proposal looks like?
• Are there any experiences?
• How should you start writing it?
• Any idea whats behind the proposal?

9
Writing a proposal general outline

• Content
• Tailored to objective and public
• No more and no less than necessary
• Structure
• Logical
• Well organised
• Transparent
• Visual attractive
• Formulation
• Concrete
• Acceptable
• Correct

10
Timing is essential

• Advance your deadline
• Regular project 1 month ahead of time
• Important project 2 months ahead of time
• Very important project 4 to 6 months ahead of
  time
• Have the proposal read by different (critical)
  readers
• Correct the text

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Who am I writing for?

• These are the reviewers committee/working group
  and specialists.
• These are no laymen, but they are certainly not
  all experts in your field!
• Make a distinction between a theme programme and
  an open programme.
• Start your explanation with general information.
  After that, you can gradually use more technical
  language.

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Quality - criteria

• Objective and problem statement
• Clarity, scope and originality
• Project approach
• Clear and effective toward the problem statement
• Methods and analyses, including the theoretical
  and/or empirical foundations
• Project group or person
• Publications, reports, guidelines, protocols,
  interventions
• Feasibility
• Whether, with the available expertise, manpower
  and facilities, the intended problem statement
  will be answered and realised within the set
  period of time

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Relevance - criteria

• The contribution of the project to objectives
  within the programme
• The innovative character
• The social and/or scientific interest
• The balance between costs and benefits
• Attention for the factors gender, culture and age
• Attention for knowledge transfer, implementation
  of project results and user committees

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Application formats

• Follow the format
• They look alike, similar structure and the same
  questions
• Title
• Problem statement
• Objective
• Relevance
• Knowledge transfer
• Project approach
• Budget

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Writing an application Title

• Choose an appealing title. Not too long, not too
  general, and make sure you fulfil the promises
  made in the title!
• Revival of CD40(L) exploration of downstream
  pathways as novel therapeutic options.
• Cellular communication in obesity a matter of
  giving and taking.

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Writing an application Problem statement

• Introduce the subject.What is the (general)
  problem?What is the opinion of others?
• Be concrete!

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Writing an application Objective

• Needs to be a logical result of the problem
  statement.
• Hypothesis driven is always better!
• Try to avoid fishing expedition

18
Writing an application Relevance

• Societal relevance
• Try to be specific.
• Scientific relevance.
• Relevance to the programme.

19
Writing an application Knowledge transfer

• Nowadays, all projects within the different
  (structural) funds need to pay (a lot of)
  attention to this subject!
• Answering questions who needs to be informed of
  the results? Who needs to do something with them?
  Again try to be specific

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Writing an application Project approach

• Not only what, but also why!
• What will you do to tackle the research question?
  Which experiences are there already? Why do you
  choose a specific approach or method? What will
  it yield? Increase the chance of success. Why is
  this approach feasible?
• Micro array and the stack of information!

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Writing an application Budget

• Make sure the budget is realistic for the planned
  activities.
• Dont forget the budget for management
  activities.
• The budget will be closely scrutinised by the
  grant supplier.
• You will often find information in the programme
  outlines of the grant supplier.
• For example 200.000 euro for research with
  proteomics, genetics and genomics seems to be
  very little.

22
Writing an application finishing touch

• Avoid annoying (printing) errors units of
  measures, miscalculations, spell correctly.
• Full application reads as a coherent document
• Milestones, deliverables, budget are linked to
  workpackages
• The expected deliverables contribute to the
  (general) objective
• Lay-out
• Important issues take more space
• Figures, diagrams,

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Individual grant proposal

• Did you ever thought about a personal website?
• It is not allowed to send along with the proposal
  publications, but it is allowed to refer to a
  website link in the proposal text.
• Curious evaluators see everything you want them
  to see!

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Rebattle

• Anonymous advices are send back, to which you may
  react.
• DO NEVER REACT LIKE THIS !!!!!
• React accurate, correct and to-the-point.
• Referent 1 points out that I (or we) did verify
  earlier that

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Interview

• Interview is Presentation and Discussion.
• No guarantee, but a good chance on success! The
  commission/ panel is already positive, otherwise
  you werent invited.
• The more commission members you can convince, the
  better. So, do not give a very detailed
  presentation when the commission is a broad
  delegation of disciplines.

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Granted or not

• Yes congratulations!
• Not No disgrace
• Try to retrieve from the grant supplier, for as
  far as possible, the comment of the committee.
• They usually know more than they tell you
• Use the comments to improve your application and
  file it again
• One often does succeed at the second or third
  attempt!

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Thank you

• For your attention