Proposals - FINAL1

Writing a Research Proposal
MAJ Ian C. Dews, PhD
Chief Science Officer, TATRC
21 March 2016
UNCLASSIFIED

Before beginning a new proposal
ian.c.dews.mil@mail.mil; 301.619.2079 2
Is your idea Original?
• Surprisingly, this isn’t a simple question.
• Search the literature and use resources like the NIH RePORTER, PubMed,
Web of Knowledge, Google Scholar, ClinicalTrials.gov.
• Assess the competition. If it’s a busy field, consider turning competitors
into collaborators to improve the strength of your proposal.
• Carve out a niche that will allow you to significantly advance knowledge in
your respective field.

ian.c.dews.mil@mail.mil; 301.619.2079 3
Read the proposal guidelines
(and follow them to the letter)
• May seem obvious, but many don’t do this.
• Review the grant application instructions for important information on the
application process and guidance on preparing specific sections of the application.
• Carefully read the funding opportunity announcement for any special instructions.
• Will tell you more than just the margin or font size they expect.
• Know the submission deadline and any internal deadlines.

4
• Design content to be appropriate for the audience you’re writing for.
Example – COL Kral mentioned “readiness” and/or “bending cost curve” when
writing proposals for Army medicine.
• There are many, subtle hints in the guidelines that tell the applicant what and how
to write.
• If not clear, contact the POC referred
Understand what the funder actually funds
ian.c.dews.mil@mail.mil; 301.619.2079

5
If needed, establish strong collaborations
• Funding agencies are generally risk-averse, so if you don’t have strong enough
qualifications, use collaborators.
• Select key people to fill any weaknesses in your expertise, reputation and
knowledge.
• This will make a huge difference in how your team’s capability and the project’s
feasibility are assessed.
• For military, purple is always nice.
• Most granting agencies aren’t willing to take a punt on your potential as a
researcher and want a guarantee that you’ll be able to do what you say you will do.

6
Remember, a proposal is an advertisement
• A proposal is basically a billboard. It’s a very brief description of why someone should
purchase your product.
• You’re selling yourself (and your team) as much, if not more, than the research project
you are proposing.
• Like an advertisement, it needs to be to the point and excite someone about what is
being proposed.

Writing the Proposal
7
A proposal is not an article, so don’t write it as one*.
• Grant proposals cannot and should not follow the standard format of peer-reviewed
articles.
Peer-reviewed articles tend to contain:
 An elaborate background of the topic
 Complex description of the hypothesis
 Even more complex description of methods and results
• A proposal should be viewed as a “pitch” that hooks the reviewer’s attention from the
get-go.
• Most reviewers are not going to spend 3 hours looking up cited information**.
* Unless the instructions or format tell you otherwise
** But if they do look up your citation, it better be true

8
Tell us why the research is exciting.
• Why is this so important and what is it about your proposal that will have
significant impact?
• Do not take it as given that your chosen topic is of any interest whatsoever to
anyone else – thus, try to convince them that it is.
• As a reviewer, I want to end up being as excited by it as you, so sell yourself and
your topic from the very beginning.

9
Never underestimate the value of a good title.
2. "The Effects of Light and Temperature on the Growth of Populations of the
Bacterium, Escherichia coli "
1. "Effects of Light and Temperature on Escherichia coli "
• Your title is a mini-abstract.
• Just like in product marketing, a catchy title and a clever opening will potentially
get you the attention you need to stand out among the hundreds or thousands of
other researchers vying for the same money.
• Should be clear, unambiguous, and hook the reviewer into wanting to read your
proposal.

10
Assume the reviewer has no knowledge of your field
• Many/most reviewers will not be experts in or will have only limited exposure to
your field.
• Do not assume any existing knowledge, explain all your terminology and tell
them repeatedly why the subject is important and compelling.
• Make the story so obvious it’s almost impossible not to follow.

11
You’ve already won or lost the game in the first page
• If you have not explained yourself on the very first page, a reviewer will at the very
least get bored, at worst they will abandon further reading.
 what you are going to do
 why it’s so exciting
 what major societal problem it will solve
• Provide some tantalizing information or dramatic impact statements up front in order
to inspire them on to further reading.

12ian.c.dews.mil@mail.mil; 301.619.2079
Tell us immediately what you are intending to research
• As part of “winning” on the first page, state the intent of your research upfront.
• Spending multiple pages setting up the background and theoretical construct of the
problem risks losing the reviewers attention.
• Reviewers look to see that you’ll be proposing to do x, y, and z such that you can
answer big questions a, b and c in an efficient, effective, and convincing manner.
• What are the alternative outcomes?

Don’t underestimate the power of good/clear figures.
• Many reviewers will scan the first page and then immediately move on to the figures.
• Be sure your figures are clear and VISIBLE. Don’t fall into the trap of figures that
look good on your computer, but are too small or detailed for cheap B&W printers.
• Try to make your figures follow your specific aims.
• Use BOLD font and well written figure captions to essentially tell the story of your
proposal in a series of cartoon panels.

Don’t do this.

More is not always better
• Don’t feel like you need to write up to the page limit.
• This is especially true if to reach the page limit you begin adding additional and
extraneous background information.
• Say what needs to be said, and no more.

Explain the applied outcomes of the research
• Explain how your results will affect the real world, either through policy, technology
or remediation.
• Never state that it will simply provide humanity with more ‘knowledge’.
• Real world examples will help a reviewer who isn’t an expert in your field connect
with the issue you’re presenting.

Hypotheses! State them.
• Hypotheses are testable assertions and not merely aims.
 If you leave the lights on, then it will take longer for people to fall asleep.
 If you refrigerate apples, they will last longer before going bad.
• List your main hypotheses and their predictions, and how you will test them with
data/models, etc.
• Link your hypotheses to your specific aims.

Avoid jargon
• Experts in your field will have their own jargon – again, many reviewers are not
experts in your field.
• This includes abbreviations and acronyms
• If a reviewer has to struggle to understand what you’re saying, it increases the
likelihood that he/she will simply stop reading.
• Be clear, and even if it requires more words, explain everything simply.

Avoid ‘feel-good’ platitudes
• Don’t use vague terms like ‘we must preserve the species’ or ‘we must stop off-
shore drilling’.
• The reviewer may not share your moral convictions, so argue with facts vs pulling
at heart-strings.
• Also avoid qualifiers like ‘a lot’, ‘very’ or ‘significant’ if there’s nothing
quantifiable.

Be methodologically specific.
• Avoid phrases like:
“We will then model the results...”
“We will measure the data...”
UNLESS it’s immediately followed with the specifics of HOW you will do this.
• If you’re not specific in how the analysis is going to be performed (and even if it’s
explained later), it gives the reviewer the impression that you may not fully
understand what you’re doing.

Be realistic in budget and time
• Particularly true for short term grants. If you have 18 months, keep the number of
specific aims at an appropriate level.
• Make sure that your institution will allow you enough time and has the required
equipment/supplies to accomplish the research, if funded.
• Make sure your specific research aims can be accomplished within the proposed time
and funding limits.
• If you’re using statistics, have a statistician look at your numbers. Be sure your
experiments are sufficiently powered to get statistically significant results.

Have an experienced colleague read it
• Better yet, have several read it.
• Have someone outside of your department/field read it.
• Others are much better at reading our proposal critically than we are.

• Not an original idea
• Rational is weak
• Writing is vague
• Uncertain outcomes
• Problem is not important
• Proposal is unfocused
• Project is too large/inadequate timeline
• Team is not equipped to execute
Finally, If you can avoid these criticisms, you’ve won
half the battle:

24
Questions / Discussion
24
“The enterprise that does not innovate ages and
declines. And in a period of rapid change such as the
present, the decline will be fast” - Peter Drucker
www.tatrc.org
Like us on Facebook!

Proposals - FINAL1

More Related Content

What's hot (20)

Viewers also liked (20)

Similar to Proposals - FINAL1 (20)

Proposals - FINAL1