Research Grant Writing

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Research Grant Writing
THINK.CHANGE.DO
Helen Thomson, Grants Development Coordinator,
Research Commercialisation Office
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TOPICS

• Why apply for Grant Funding?
• Overview of the research funding policy
  environment in Australia
• The main types of competitive grants and funding
  bodies
• Key considerations for preparing competitive
  research grant proposals

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Why Apply for Grant Funding

• To gain resources for research activity, such
  as
• People (eg. Research Assistants/Associates, Post
  Graduate Research Students)
• Equipment (eg. Lap-top computers, video
  equipment, microscopes)
• Travel (eg. Field studies, conferences)
• Teaching Relief

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Overview of Research Funding in Australia

• 1999 Government issued a White Paper on research
  and research training, Knowledge and Innovation
• A strengthened ARC and an invigorated national
  competitive grants system
• Performance-based funding for research student
  places and research
• A collaborative research programme to address
  rural and regional needs

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Overview of Research Funding in Australia

• 2001 major Innovation Action Plan,
• Backing Australias Ability. This increased
  funding generally by 2.9 billion over five years
  and in higher education by 1.47 billion.
• Funding for a doubling of ARC competitive grants,
  increased project-specific and systemic
  infrastructure grants

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Overview of Research Funding in Australia

• Backing Australias Ability II - Building Our
  Future through Science and Innovation is the
  Governments 5.3 billion science and innovation
  package to follow on from the Backing Australias
  Ability strategy announced in 2001.
• Combined with other science and Innovation
  programmes, the Governments 10-year commitment
  (200102 to 201011) is likely to be around 52
  billion.
• BAA II provides an additional 1189.2 million for
  the Australian Research Council (ARC) to maintain
  the doubling of funding for the National
  Competitive Grants Programme achieved by Backing
  Australias Ability.

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Why is Research Being Funded This Way?

• Commitment to pursue excellence in research,
  science and technology, to build an even more
  highly skilled workforce and increase
  opportunities for taking new ideas to market.
• Generating new ideas and bringing them to life
  as innovative and exciting new Australian
  products, processes, services and businesses.

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Who Funds Research in Australia?

• Australian Competitive Grants include
• Commonwealth Schemes (eg. Australian Research
  Council, NHMRC)
• Government Departments and Agency Grant Programs
  (eg. Australian Transport Safety Bureau)
• Non-Commonwealth Schemes (eg. Financial Markets
  Foundation for Children)
• Community and Private Foundations and Trusts (eg.
  Sylvia and Charles Viertel Charitable
  Foundation)
• Co-operative Research Centre Funding
• Brings together researchers and research users.
  They also train
• researchers in the skills needed to commercialise
  research and produce
• innovative business outcomes

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Who Funds Research in Australia?

• Other Public Sector Funding
• Local Government
• State Government
• Commonwealth Government (other than those listed
  on Aust. Competitive Grants Register, previous
  page)
• Industry and Other Funding for Research
• Contracts
• Donations, Bequests, Foundations
• Research Consultancies
• Industry Partner collaborations on ARC Linkage
  grants

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Who Funds Research in Australia?

• Australian Research Council (ARC) Competitive
  Grant Schemes
• Discovery Scheme has the following categories
• Projects (including Fellowships)
• Indigenous Researchers Development
• Federation Fellowships
• Linkage Scheme has the following categories
• Projects (including Postgraduate Scholarships and
  Fellowships)
• Infrastructure
• International
• Aust. Post Doctoral Fellowships (CSIRO)
• Learned Academies Special Projects

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Who Funds Research in Australia?

• National Health Medical Research Council
  (NHMRC)
• Draws upon governments, medical
  practitioners, nurses and allied health
  professionals, researchers, teaching and research
  institutions, public and private program
  managers, service administrators, community
  health organisations, social health researchers
  and consumers.
• Projects Programs
• Awards (including Career Development Award)
• Fellowships Scholarships
• Strategic and priority driven research
• Capacity Building Grants in Population Health
  Research
• Health Research Partnerships Special
  initiatives

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Who Funds Research in Australia?

• Institutional Grants Scheme (IGS)
• The IGS is a component of the Higher Education
  Programme which is used to support research and
  research training activities. The IGS may be used
  to fund any activity related to research at the
  institutions discretion.
•  
• The allocation of funds to institutions under
  the IGS is based on a performance-based formula
  comprising
•        Research income (collected through the
  Higher Education Research Data Collection
  (HERDC))
•        Commonwealth-funded research student
  load (collected through the Higher Education
  Student Collection) and
•        Research publications (collected through
  the HERDC)

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Who funds Research in Australia?

• Research Infrastructure Block Grant (RIBG)
• The purpose of RIBG is to enhance the development
  and maintenance of research infrastructure in
  higher education institutions for the support of
  high quality research in all disciplines.
• The RIBG allocation to institutions is
  formula-driven with allocations reflecting the
  relative success of each institution in
  attracting competitive research funds, as
  calculated from schemes in the Australian
  Competitive Grants Register (ACGR), listed at
• www.dest.gov.au/highered/ research/documents/acgr
  2004.pdf

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How is UTS Developing Research?

• UTS provides a range of specially designed
  internal funding opportunities that assist to
  develop the ability of main research groups and
  individuals to go on to compete for external
  grants. These include
• Early Career Researchers Scheme
• Research Excellence Grants Scheme
• Industry Link Seeding Research Grants Scheme

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Descriptions of Designated National
ResearchPriorities and associated Priority Goals

• Research Priority 1 An Environmentally
  Sustainable Australia
• Transforming the way we utilize our land, water,
  mineral and energy resources through a better
  understanding of human and environmental systems
  and the use of new technologies
• Priority Goals
• Water a critical resource
• Overcoming soil loss, salinity and acidity
• Reducing and capturing emissions in transport
  and energy generation
• Sustainable use of Australias biodiversity
• Developing deep earth resources
• Responding to climate change and variability

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Descriptions of Designated National
ResearchPriorities and associated Priority Goals

• Research Priority 2 Promoting and Maintaining
  Good Health
• Promoting good health and well being for all
  Australians
• Priority Goals
• A healthy start to life
• Ageing well, ageing productively
• Preventive healthcare
• Strengthening Australia's social and economic
  fabric

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Descriptions of Designated National
ResearchPriorities and associated Priority Goals

• Research Priority 3 Frontier Technologies for
  Building and Transforming Australian Industries
• Stimulating the growth of world-class Australian
  industries using innovative technologies
  developed from cutting-edge research
• Priority Goals
• Breakthrough science
• Frontier technologies
• Advanced materials
• Smart information use
• Promoting an innovation culture and economy

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Descriptions of Designated National
ResearchPriorities and associated Priority Goals

• Research Priority 4 Safeguarding Australia
• Safeguarding Australia from terrorism, crime,
  invasive diseases and pests, strengthening our
  understanding of Australias place in the region
  and the world, and securing our infrastructure,
  particularly with respect to our digital
  systems.
• Priority goals
• Critical infrastructure
• Understanding our region and the world
• Protecting Australia from invasive diseases and
  pests
• Protecting Australia from terrorism and crime
• Transformational defence technologies

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Secrets of Successful Grant Writing

• When developing your proposal, think of it not
  only as a research methodology which shows you
  have a clear and well-reasoned approach to
  investigating the problem, but also as a
• JOB APPLICATION, showing youre the very best
  person for the task.
• BUSINESS PLAN, showing your proposal represents a
  sound investment which will lead to a valuable
  and innovative research outcome.
• PROJECT PLAN, showing you can manage the delivery
  of a valuable project, on time, on budget and
  within resources.

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Secrets of Successful Grant Writing

• WAYS TO INCREASE YOUR PROSPECTS OF SUCCESS
  INCLUDE
• COMPLY Pay close attention to all the guidelines
  and requirements
• EXCITE! Convey enthusiasm, innovation and insight
  
• INFLUENCE Think what will most influence the
  jury who will assess your case.
• ESTABLISH CREDIBILITY Clearly explain your
  methodology and convincingly argue why it is the
  most effective approach
• BUILD CONFIDENCE Demonstrate track record,
  competence and connections. Explain why you are
  best-placed to deliver
• DIFFERENTIATE Show how your proposal is novel,
  unique, necessary, timely or has greater scope
  for a good outcome. Show why your
  team/institution are best placed to deliver.

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Secrets of Successful Grant Writing

• TITLE
• The title of the project is vital. Ideally, it
  will
• be short, crisp and eye-catching
• use clear, easy English
• capture the essence of the problem
• indicate how your research may explore or solve
  it.

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Secrets of Successful Grant Writing

• THE SUMMARY
• The summary (sometimes restricted to 100 words)
  is the first make-or-break test youll face. It
  will affect whether your proposal goes forward
  for closer scrutiny. It influences the reader
  favourably or unfavourably to the rest of your
  proposal. It needs to
• highlight the significance of the issue or
  problem to society or the nation
• indicate the research is original or unique in
  its field
• explain how it will address the problem.

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Secrets of Successful Grant Writing

• THE SUMMARY Continued
• These three aspects need to be reflected in your
  title and summary
• Aims
• Significance and innovation
• Outputs and outcomes
• ALWAYS revise the title and summary after
  completing the full application.

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Secrets of Successful Grant Writing

• AIMS
• List your aims clearly. Explain
• how your project advances knowledge in its field
  internationally
• the broad intent of the research
• what you intend to do
• the expected outcome

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Secrets of Successful Grant Writing

• SIGNIFICANCE
• Explain the impact of your research on humanity
  or Australia
• use Government statistics to explain your
  projects impact on national social, economic or
  environmental goals
• describe how it will help to address these
• explain how the research is original or
  innovative
• describe the new technologies or methodologies it
  will produce
• answer the questions why are you doing it? and
  so what?

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Secrets of Successful Grant Writing

• OUTCOMES
• State what you expect the research to yield.
• This could include
• an advance in human understanding or knowledge
• a new technology
• a new system or methodology
• an outcome of value to industry, society or the
  environment (specify the value)
• a contribution to national innovation or some
  other national priority or goal

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Secrets of Successful Grant Writing

• OUTPUTS
• Specify what you will produce.
• This may include
• an academic publication or book
• a conference paper or presentation to industry
• an experimental mode
• a demonstration device or pilot plant
• an exhibition or display

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Secrets of Successful Grant Writing

• GUIDELINES AND TIMELINES
• Read application guidelines with care.
• Prepare a checklist and address them all.
  (Review panels look for reasons to cull proposals
  dont give them a chance by failing to address
  the required criteria)
• take note of weightings, or point scores, given
  to different parts of the application. Give
  special attention to the parts with the highest
  score
• make sure that your research plan stacks up with
  the declared aim of the research ie that you
  can deliver the promised outcome
• explain how the research plan will work, using
  timelines and flowcharts. If possible, set
  deadlines.

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Secrets of Successful Grant Writing

• WRITING STYLE
• How well you write will influence the success of
  your project.
• A strong, clearly-written, well-reasoned proposal
  is more likely to be funded than one which is
  complex, contorted and jargon-riddled.
• Some assessors may not be from your field or
  discipline, some many not read English with
  complete fluency, and some may simply believe
  that a clear proposal indicates a clear mind.
• Keep sentences short one idea to a sentence. Use
  short paragraphs
• use crisp, vigorous language that gives your
  proposal a feeling of dynamism

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Secrets of Successful Grant Writing

• WRITING STYLE Continued
• avoid complex sentence structures that confuse or
  bore
• use good, plain English. Check your grammar
• design the proposal to be read by a fast, busy
  reader, who wants to grasp the main points easily
  
• lay it out clearly avoid huge slabs of text
• impress the reader with clear thought and
  reasoning
• avoid adjectives, adverbs, acronyms and
  tautologies (repetitious phrases)
• obtain feedback from a colleague

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Secrets of Successful Grant Writing

• DOING THE BUDGET
• Dont treat the budget as an afterthought. It is
  a key element in a business proposal.
• Making a research proposal is about securing the
  money to do the research. This means you need to
  make a business case that justifies the
  investment you wish the funding body to make in
  you and your ideas.
• Make sure the funding you seek is consistent with
  the research activities you propose to carry out,
  and that the two are integrated and fully
  justified.
• Explain briefly why a particular resource or cost
  is necessary to the success of the project. If
  possible, indicate the cost/benefits of your
  research and its expected outcomes.

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Secrets of Successful Grant Writing

• YOUR TRACK RECORD
• Explain why you are the very best person or team
  to do the work.
• Catch 22 for young researchers is the need to
  show a track record to secure a grant or
  partnership. Make the most of what youve got
•  List all your publications in quality academic
  journals, all conference papers and all prizes.
  Mention your citations. This is to demonstrate
  excellence and achievement.
• Refer to past collaborations, eminent people or
  successful teams you have worked with. Show you
  have a pedigree in quality research and can
  deliver the goods.
• List relevant industry experience, involvement
  with advisory bodies, membership of committees,
  honorary positions etc. Show youre active and
  involved, an achiever.

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Secrets of Successful Grant Writing

• NATIONAL BENEFIT
• Show how your work benefits Australia.
• Relate your work to as many National Research
  Priorities and their subsets as you can
• Explain its national impact e.g. - dollar return
  to the economy and/or industry - lives saved or
  otherwise enhanced - new industries, export
  products and jobs - benefit to the environment -
  placing Australia in the world lead in the field

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Secrets of Successful Grant Writing

• COMMUNICATING RESULTS
• Explain how Australia can capture the benefit of
  your work.
• Research funding bodies want to know their
  investment in your research will be of value.
  Indicate how you will communicate or transfer it
  to potential users, commercial partners or
  society
• a journal article or peer conference paper
• industry workshops, conferences or briefings
• a spin-off or start-up company
• licence or joint venture with an existing company
• targeted media announcements, articles and a
  marketing plan
• brochure, book, WWW, multimedia or other
  information tool
• government briefing, community briefing or public
  lecture.

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Secrets of Successful Grant Writing

• COLLABORATIVE PARTNERSHIPS
• Highlight your collaborations.
• Some funding opportunities are intended to
  facilitate research partnerships, with industry,
  other institutions or overseas collaborators.
• You should provide evidence of past
  collaborations leading to the present proposal
  and indicate how it may lead to future
  collaborations. Indicate if the contribution was
  cash, in kind , or both.

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Secrets of Successful Grant Writing

• IF YOU GET A KNOCK BACK
• Dont become discouraged.
• Even the best researchers arent successful
  every time. Sometimes you may be even given the
  opportunity to make an appeal or rejoinder and
  seek feedback. Read the reports, get angry, then
  put them away and ponder the general criticisms
  for a few days.
• List each assessors points, most important
  first.
• Respond to each assessor in turn, linking their
  points to your replies.
• Check that you have responded to all points.
• Never criticize an assessor personally.
• Rebut each point clearly and simply, citing
  evidence.

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Secrets of Successful Grant Writing

• IF YOU GET A KNOCKBACK Continued
• If an assessor has misread something, explain
  politely what it means.
• Refer to favourable comments by assessors.
• Re-read your response a day or two later. Make it
  cool, objective and polite. Show your reply to an
  experienced colleague.
• Talk to experienced colleagues about ways to
  improve your future prospects of success.
• Ask for examples of successful proposals.
• Keep assessors comments to help you improve
  future proposals.

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Secrets of Successful Grant Writing

• IF YOURE NOT SUCCESSFUL, DONT GIVE UP, LEARN
• FROM THE EXPERIENCE AND MAKE A START ON
• YOUR NEXT PROPOSAL

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Examples of Titles 100 Word Summaries

• Title A New Paradigm of Financial Market
  Behaviour
• Summary
• The project contributes to the development of a
  newly emerging paradigm for describing financial
  market behaviour. It will model financial markets
  as adaptively evolving systems that are the
  outcome of the interaction of boundedly rational
  economic agents with heterogeneous beliefs. The
  new paradigm will seek to explain aspects of
  financial market behaviour not well explained by
  the standard finance paradigm. The project
  outcomes will be of benefit to financial market
  researchers and regulators by providing a better
  framework for understanding and managing
  financial market volatility.

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Examples of Titles 100 Word Summaries

• Title Ethics as Practice - A Study of
  Organisational Learning and Management Power in
  Australian Society
• Summary The research will ask how
  Organizations learn their ethics in and through
  management practice? Learning relates to
  community expectations of organizations?
  Organizational ethical practices relate to the
  public image that organizations portray?
• Using ethnographic methods we will research how
  concrete organizational practice is informed by
  ethics and foregrounded through organizational
  learning. Managerial practice will be compared
  with broader concerns embedded in community
  expectations. Comparisons will be drawn between
  espoused portrayals of public images by
  organizations with the power practices that
  inform everyday managerial behaviour. We will
  produce a model for organizational learning and
  ethical management practice.

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Examples of Titles 100 Word Summaries

• Title Providing End-to-End Quality of Service
  to Internet Applications
• Summary Current Internet only supports
  limited quality of service (QoS) within isolated
  domains. This project allows critical
• applications to be deployed over the global
  Internet. The project employs a programmable
  architecture for composing services and
  intelligent software elements for negotiating
  acceptable QoS responses for individual
  application flows over multiple administrative
  domains. The architecture employs DiffServs
  aggregation property to make it scalable for the
  Internet core. Successful outcomes would open the
  floodgates, allowing the development and
  deployment of applications such as high quality
  videoconferences, live sport broadcasts, remote
  medical services, network games, real-time
  on-line education, and multimedia distributions.

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Examples of Titles 100 Word Summaries

• Title Lifted from the Ironing Board The ABC
  Women's Session, 1935-1973
• Summary The Australian Broadcasting
  Commission (ABC) broadcast radio programs for
  women from 1936 to 1971. This project provides
  the first history of these programs. It will
  document the establishment and decline of the
  'Women's Session' during this period via internal
  ABC correspondence and audience research, scripts
  and listeners' letters. It will therefore provide
  a case study of the dynamic relationships between
  media production, circulation and reception that
  will contribute to understandings of gender
  formation through popular culture. It will also
  forge new ways of understanding how women have
  contributed to the cultural life of the nation
  during the twentieth century.

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Examples of Titles 100 Word Summaries

• Title Impact of industrially based endocrine
  disrupting chemicals on aquatic biota
• Summary Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs)
  are a serious threat to aquatic organisms,
  livestock and humans. EDCs are present in water
  discharged from sewage treatment plants and in
  leachate from contaminated land. This project
  will determine the impact
• of EDCs from contaminated landfill on aquatic
  animals. It will also identify the chemicals
  responsible for biological impact by
• developing new bio-assays suitable for
  industrial, scientific and regulatory authority
  applications. This research has wide-ranging
  relevance and value to Australian State and
  Federal regulators and industries because of the
  ubiquity of sewage treatment plants and
  contaminated leachate from landfills.

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Examples of Titles 100 Word Summaries

• Title Development of natural herbal medicines
  for managing metabolic syndrome in order to
  prevent type 2 diabetes
• Summary Type 2 diabetes affects almost 7 of
  Australias population. Its incidence continues
  to grow, as indicated by high rates of metabolic
  syndrome, a pre-stage of type 2 diabetes. Using
  novel and bio-molecular techniques, we will
  evaluate the effects and mechanisms of three
  natural compounds from anti-diabetic Chinese
  herbs on cellular and rodent models with
  metabolic syndrome. This study will provide
  scientific evidence as to how and why herbal
  compounds improve insulin resistance and
  abnormalities in glucose and lipids metabolism.
  The outcome of this project will support the
  development of natural products to manage
  metabolic syndrome and prevent type 2 diabetes.

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Examples of Titles 100 Word Summaries

• Title Optimal Transcutaneous Energy
  Transmission System (TETS) for an Implanted
  Artificial Heart
• Summary This project aims to devise the best
  way to get electrical power to devices implanted
  in the human body. The immediate application, the
  VentrAssist artificial heart, is under pilot
  trial, in three people to date. In the trial
  model, the electric lead passes through a hole in
  the skin, which poses a high infection risk. This
  project will research a novel, provisionally
  patented method of inductively transmitting power
  and signals across the skin, exploiting new
  ferromagnetic materials, biocompatible coatings
  and software-controlled electronic circuits. The
  method should be efficient, secure and
  infection-proof, with world market potential for
  all powered medical implants.
•  

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Examples of Titles 100 Word Summaries

• Title Coal-ash as a resource for sustainable
  soil-management in plant production systems
• Summary Acidification and salinisation are
  major causes of land degradation in Australia,
  costing 1-2 billion to combat. Farmers used 1.9M
  t of lime and 1.0M t of gypsum to manage their
  soils in 2000. Power stations annually produce
  12M t of coal-ash that have functional
  characteristics of lime and gypsum and can
  potentially ameliorate degraded land. Presently
  only 43 of the ash is used and almost entirely
  for construction with the rest going into
  landfills. This project will determine the
  sustainable use of coal-ash to improve structure
  and nutritive properties of the soil and to raise
  crop yield across several sites in Australia.
•  
•  

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Useful Web Sites

• UTS Research Commercialisation Office
• http//www.uts.edu.au/research
•  
• Australian Research Council (ARC)
  http//www.arc.gov.au
• Backing Australias Ability http//backingaus.inn
  ovation.gov.au
•  
• Dept of Education Science Training (DEST)
  http//www.dest.gov.au/highered/research
•  
• JASON (Joint Academic Scholarship Online Network)
  Postgraduate Scholarship Database for Australia
  http//www.jason.edu.au

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THE END