Writing Successful Science Proposals

1
Writing Successful Science Proposals
Notes based on the book titled,

• Andrew Friedland Carol Folt
• Yale University Press 2000

2
Getting Started

• Think Big
• Avoid tunnel vision
• Dream
• Take your time
• Think of using starting exercises critique
  proposals, accomplish administrative tasks,
  search the web for grant opportunities

3
Know your audience

• Basic research proposals NSF, NIH, EPA, NASA
• Program initiatives
• Corporate funding
• Private non-profit organizations
• Call the program officer?

4
Authorship Responsibility

• Discuss expectations from the onset
• Appreciate what goes into research
• Understand the responsibility of 1st authorship
• No one owns ideas, right? Learn the conventions
  of your field

5
Ethics and Research

• Responsibility and accountability
• Understand your obligations
• Give appropriate credit
• Remain objective
• Spend money appropriately
• Treat your co-workers with respect

6
Four Precepts for Communication

• Organize
• Highlight
• Funnel
• Focus
• All parts of the proposal from the summary to the
  methods benefit from these precepts

7
Basic Organization

• Project Summary
• Table of Contents
• Project Description
• Prior results
• Problem and significance
• Introduction/Background
• Research Plan
• References

8
Pitfalls

• Failure to establish significance
• Too many details about the wrong aspects of the
  work
• Failure to provide testable hypotheses
• Good idea but weak design/approach
• Inadequate skills of the investigator(s)
• Poor presentation- messy, crowded, small font
• Typos and other errors

9
Cornerstones of the Proposal

• Important questions
• The best and most appropriate methods
• Effective analysis and application
• Synthesis and timely dissemination

10
Titles

• Clear and concise
• Avoid jargon
• Buzzwords good or bad?
• Cute and informal good or bad?
• Questions

11
Weak Titles

• Does tectonic activity cause global extinction?
• Mathematical modeling of non-linear systems
• Erosion in streams- slip, sliding away?
• In search of the solar constant

12
Stronger Titles

• Analysis of pesticide transport pathways and
  degradation in natural wetlands
• Predicting the response of landscape modification
  in new England and Florida
• Reconciling molecular and fossil evidence on the
  age of angiosperms
• Spatially efficient management of a
  seawater-intruded aquifer

13
The Significance Statement

• This is the heart of your proposal
• Several ways to craft a strong statement
• Breadth and generality
• Concrete contribution
• Demonstrate basic and applied uses
• Short and long term applications

14
Project Summary

• Not the same as an abstract to a paper
• Provide the template for the reviewer
• Check conventions in your field
• The two-paragraph model
• Context, significance, succinct description
• Techniques, important details, outputs, summarize
  contributions

15
Objectives and Hypotheses

• What are the differences?
• Observe the conventions of your disciplines
• Placement in the proposal- several options
• Link your objectives and hypotheses to your
  significance essential!
• Make sure your methods/design truly tests the
  hypotheses or meets objectives

16
Linking throughout the Proposal

• Title
• Project Summary
• Introduction/Background
• Significance
• Research design and methods
• Reinforce your goal, deepen and focus several
  places in the proposal

17
Introduction/Background

• Relevant literature review
• Preliminary data
• Conceptual or empirical model
• Justification of approach or novel methods

18
Introduction/Background

• Lay the foundation for your proposed work
• Key concepts
• Previous work (yours and others)
• Funnel from general to specific
• Follow parallel organization

19
Other issues in the Introduction

• References how many, which ones?
• The role of models
• The role of figures, data, schematic diagrams
• The physical layout
• Funnel to your objectives/hypotheses

20
Problems with References

• Too many, too few
• Too old
• Too many to yourself or your advisor
• Poorly placed
• Mis-cited

21
Research Plan

• Overview of design
• Objectives, hypotheses and methods
• Analysis of expected results
• Timetable

22
Important Points for Organizing

• Provide roadmaps
• Use parallel language and organization
• Repeat a bit but add detail as you go
• Organize,Highlight, Focus, Funnel
• Use headers
• Vary sentence length
• Dont put reviewers to sleep make everything
  easy for them!

23
Experimental/Research Design

• Give enough but do not get bogged down in detail
• Questions reviewers want to know
• - are these the best methods for this question?
• - are methods proven and cited?
• - feasible?
• - precision?

24
Plan for the Unexpected

• Discuss expected and unexpected outcomes
• Do not have a proposal that rests on a single
  outcome for its importance
• Suggestions
• Expected results significance
• Future direction
• Related research

25
Timeline

• This is a reality check for you and the reviewers