Tips for Faculty

The most outstanding research faculty in the College have discovered strategies for securing grant funding to support for their work. This site provides links to some potential funding sources—and a “Top Ten” list of suggestions from College administrators about grant-writing.

1. Seek to conduct research and scholarship that leads to significant breakthroughs in knowledge within your field of inquiry. Develop a compelling need for your research ideas. Begin by carefully writing out objectives for your planned study while at the same time explaining in a succinct fashion why these objectives are important in advancing the knowledge and mission of the proposed funding agency.
2. Plan ahead of any deadline. It can take several months to write a good grant proposal. Why does it take so long? Writing and ideas are enriched by review from colleagues and mentors and these reviews only help if they are completed in time for you to capitalize on the recommendations. Proposals are often enriched by gathering a team of scholars to pursue the topic and sometimes members of the team are employed at other Universities. The review of literature should reveal the full range of prior discoveries relevant to the proposed work. Institutional compliance standards must be met.
3. Prepare an outline of your proposal so that parts are organized and you don't ramble. Using subsections or subheadings are often helpful to the reader. Hire a technical editor if writing is not your strong point.
4. Discuss your research ideas with others. Involve both colleagues and graduate students in brainstorming. Encourage your group to identify weaknesses in your objectives, approach, and other arguments in order for you to develop a better proposal. Better yet, have an expert in your field give honest and critical (brutal) feedback before you submit your proposal. Colleagues are not always the most appropriate individuals as they may fear coming across as harsh or overly critical. Talk with your department head to try and identify an outside reviewer. Some may be persuaded by paying them a small amount to do this (eg. $200).
5. Make certain that the match between your idea and the agency's mission and funding interests are compatible. It is futile to try to convince an agency you have a good idea if there is not a fit!
6. Link your research to a theoretical framework (especially in behavioral and social sciences) or mechanism(s) (important in the natural sciences). Agencies are more likely to fund research proposals that have a sound scholarly underpinning and agencies are averse to funding descriptive studies.
7. Contact the pre-awards office about your intent to submit and comply with their policies regarding submissions of budgets and full proposals to their office.
8. Writing a proposal does not enhance your resume unless the proposal results in a funded grant. Although success in proposal submission is never assured, success improves when the idea is substantive, the research methodology is clearly articulated, the narrative of the proposal is compelling, and the proposal is aligned with the purposes of the competition.
9. If your proposal is not funded, capitalize on the reviewers' remarks and revise and resubmit. Your resubmission is likely to be far better than your initial submission because you have the benefit of comments from reviewers.
10. Never-ever give up!