The Million-Dollar Grant Writing Advice Every Early Career Researcher Needs To Know


The ultimate goal for early career researchers is to secure enough funding to sustain their program of research.

Even though it might seem like getting funded is just dumb luck, my team’s 80% funding success rate says otherwise. We know that there are techniques and strategies that can get you noticed and fully funded.

But I see two mistakes over and over again that make it harder to drum up excitement for your research idea—which prevents your application from getting across the pay line.

Clarify Your Research Idea

I know you wouldn’t put yourself through the grant writing process—the gallons of coffee, the 3 am staring at the ceiling, and the all-out sprint to the submission deadline—if you weren’t truly passionate about your research idea.

But just because you’re fired up about your research doesn’t mean reviewers will be, especially if the overall presentation of your research concept isn’t presented clearly in your application.

This isn’t a knock on the validity of your idea—if you think something is worth investigating, you’re probably not the only one. It really boils down to how you talk about it.

For the sake of efficiency, you want to make sure you’re on solid conceptual ground before writing your full application. Otherwise, you risk getting deep into your application and realizing that somewhere along the way, things got off track.

You’ll end up going back to the drawing board if the study design doesn’t make sense, if you haven’t presented a solid conceptual framework, or if the scientific premise is weak—so it’s worth avoiding that headache by having a solid blueprint first.

How to Get More Clarity on Your Research Idea

Make sure that you’re connecting your proposed research to the conversation happening in the literature: what are you proposing to add to that conversation?

Ask for feedback early on in the grant writing process to ensure that your concept is clear and scientifically sound.

Remember that your goal is to clearly communicate the value of your research to the reviewers and to get them excited to see your research take place.

Those are the types of strategies that you need to establish really early on if you want to give your application the best possible chance of getting funded.

Give Yourself Time To Do Your Best

Practically everyone I work with dramatically underestimates the amount of time it takes to write a well-crafted grant.

This is doubly true for early career researchers who look at seasoned researchers churning out multiple grants a year and think it’s going to be that simple for them too.

This unintentional procrastination clouds the fact that putting together everything a grant application requires takes a lot of time. And trying to put all the pieces together at the last minute is a surefire way to miss out on funding.

A significant reason why last-minute grant writing fails is that grant writing requires a deeper level of thinking. And deep thinking can only happen when you provide time and space for it to happen.

When you’re just starting out, deep thinking is even more important because you’re not just writing a research grant—you’re also learning how to write a research grant.

While simultaneously shaping and refining your overall program of research.

It’s a LOT.

So if you skip steps, rush through the process, or don’t provide yourself enough time to do everything well, it’s no wonder that your application doesn’t get discussed—much less funded.

How to Give Yourself More Time to Write Your Grant

The solution for creating more time to think, plan, and execute is simple.

Slow down.

And what I’m about to say may sound counter-intuitive, but it might be just what you need to hear today.

Slowing down will help you get funded faster.

Once you understand how to conceptualize your project before moving on to the main application and once you give yourself enough time to write a really high-quality grant, your chances of getting funded will skyrocket.


More Grant Writing Tips

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