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The Craft of Scientific Research - Chapter 10. How to write a grant application

The final chapter of the book is about writing a research proposal. 

The doctoral course that inspired this book is intended for 1st year PhD students.  If you are also a PhD student, discussing fundraising may seem a bit premature. But the real purpose of this chapter is to challenge you with the problem of describing a research project you have not conducted yet, but that a third party needs to evaluate.

The most obvious reason for this could be fundraising, but there are other reasons as well.  For example, in your career, you may be asked to describe in detail your future research activity for a promotion or for a new job.

We start with the Shannon-Weaver model of communication, since a proposal is a specialised form of communication, to discuss the message and the target.  We point out the differences between basic and applied research in answering the “why?” question, talk about S.M.A.R.T. objectives, and so on.  We briefly touch on project management and impact analysis.  Last, we discuss a few essential steps: Step #1: Understand your macro-area

Step #2: Find the funders for that area

Step #3: Find the catch-22 for each funder

Step #4: Find the best call

Step #5: Align to the call

 

Enjoy the reading!


Summary of Chapter 10 of “The Craft of Scientific Research”, by Marco Viceconti, self-published and Green Open Access book on the Zenodo repository: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18069190. 

 

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