Proposals for Engineering John D Sahr University of Washington Electrical Engineering

1
Proposals for Engineering John D SahrUniversity
of WashingtonElectrical Engineering

• Grants vs. Contracts vs. Gifts
• Basic Budgeting Issues
• Some strategies
• PT issues

2
Engineering ProposalsGrants vs. Contracts vs.
Gifts

• A Grant is, roughly, a gift
• The sponsor is persuaded that you have a worthy
  project, and gives you funds to address that
  project.
• A Contract is a legal agreement
• The sponsor expects a product. If you deliver
  it, you get all the money, regardless of whether
  you actually needed all of it.
• A Gift is funding which is unrestricted
• ... but for which it is understood that certain
  work will occur.

3
Engineering ProposalsGrants vs. Contracts vs.
Gifts

• Granting Agencies
• NSF
• DOE
• NIH
• NASA
• Some DoD agencies (e.g. AFOSR)
• Contracting Agencies
• DARPA
• Industry
• Gift Agencies
• Mostly private or industrial
• Internal UW RRF

4
Engineering ProposalsGrants vs. Contracts vs.
Gifts

• Grants
• Most desirable
• Pretty flexible
• Small to medium money
• Contracts
• Most money!
• Most pressure!
• Beware volatility!
• Gifts
• Most flexible!
• Most durable
• Requires years to develop the relationship

5
Engineering ProposalsBasic Budgeting Issues

• People are expensive
• Funding agencies are often far more willing to
  buy stuff than to support people.
• Grad students
• Post Docs
• Research Scientists
• Your summer salary
• ... will cost net 10k/month, and gross
  15k/month
• Some AO's will explicitly exclude people
• AFOSR DURIP.
• Some agencies will support AY salary (NIH, DARPA)
  and some won't (NSF)

6
Engineering ProposalsBasic Budgeting Issues (2)

• Overhead
• Is a tax from the institution to support
  infrastructure (the electric bill, the phone, the
  janitors, accountants ...)
• About 55 at higher ed. institutions
• About 100 to 200 at private research firms (!)
• Some basic costing
• One RA-year will have a gross cost of about 45k
• Some schools (not UW) have AY salary requirements
• Some schools (UW) have A/B plan which permits
  you to augment your salary. Long story.

7
Engineering ProposalsInteracting with Sponsors

• Visit Your Sponsors.
• Many of them attend conferences. Go introduce
  yourself. They'll be expecting you.
• Go to DC and see them.
• Tell your Dept. Chair to give you 1000 to spend
  3 days in DC. Do this once per year --- or more.
• Ask to review proposals
• So you can see what proposals look like
• So your (potential) sponsor will love you
• Get on review panels
• Then the sponsor will pay you to visit them.

8
Engineering ProposalsInteracting with Sponsors
(2)

• Understand Your Sponsors.
• They like to give money away.
• They don't have an infinite amount of it.
• Most of them are forward-looking, and have a
  broader agenda than fund the best science they
  want to fund the future, which means you.
• They may know about other funding sources that
  you don't know about.
• It is easier for them to fund a few big projects,
  then a bunch of little ones. Insert MDA story
  ...

9
Engineering ProposalsPT issues

• You get (much) more credit for being a PI
• Better to be a PI on a 40k grant, than a CoPI on
  a 1M grant.
• Better still to be a PI on several small grants
  and a CoPI in a Center proposal.
• Proposal writing is hard. Make sure it's worth
  it. A rule of thumb a proposal should be worth
  at least 10k/page ... and 20k/page is better
  still.
• Expect proposals to fail.
• Better to have one successful proposal, and six
  fails, than to have two fails.