Some Notes on Writing a Research Grant Proposals/Fellowship Proposals

To complement the research proposal writing assignment, I thought that I’d talk a little about writing fellowship and research grant proposals.

My comments apply primarily to SSHRC (and related) funding, but some of these principles will be of more general relevance.

Introduction

• In the first paragraph let the reader know what the central research question/or research objective is. It is important to do this early. (Evaluators often read carefully at the beginning, and then scan the rest of the document – and you need to engage them early on.)

Literature

• It is important that you demonstrate that you are familiar with the literature relevant to your research question. Include citations – especially recent citations. If possible, attach a page of references.

You need to demonstrate the theoretical and scholarly basis for your research question (or research objectives).

You need to demonstrate how your research will advance the field.

If you can offer hypotheses that address your research question, you will strengthen your case. However, they (and the related research question) should be non-trivial. Non-obvious hypotheses that can be derived from theory and/or past empirical research will add to the quality of your proposal.

Research Design Issues

• Research designs tend to be subject to change, what is important in describing your research design is that you make the reader aware that you are familiar with the key research design issues, that you are competent, that your research design fits with your research question, and that you are going to be able to carry out the research given your resources (time, money, expertise).

• If you are doing a survey it is important to talk about sampling issues (e.g. population, sampling frame, type of sample) and about data collection (e.g., interview versus self administered questionnaire, type of questions, who will be collecting the data).

• Normally, you would provide far more methodological details in a thesis proposal than you would in a fellowship proposal or even a research grant proposal. However, if you have a complicated design (or an unusual one) it is often useful to spell out some of the details (e.g., the details of a longitudinal design, an experimental design, etc.).

Results

Normally you won’t be expected to devote a large proportion of the proposal to the results, but you do need to do several things:

• Indicate how you will analyze the data (e.g., multiple regression analysis).

• For students, it is important to indicate that you have expertise to carry out the analysis you propose (e.g. mention key courses you have taken).

• Indicate the anticipated results, and how the anticipated results (or different possible results) will have implications for theory, policy, and substantive knowledge.

Expertise/Program of Study/Etc.

The evaluation of research grant proposals and fellowship proposals are based partly on the quality of the research proposal, and partly on your expertise and past research.

For students, grade point averages and letters of reference are very important. For researchers, your publication record, record of past grants, and productivity from past grants are all very important (e.g., number of publications per grant).

At a workshop I once attended a speaker said that the best way to get money is to apply for money to conduct research that you’ve already done. What he meant by this, is that if you can demonstrate expertise in the problem you are studying, talk about preliminary findings, and talk about past contributions you have made to understanding the problem then you are more likely to be successful. This is particularly true for those applying for a research grant. Being able to refer to prior publications you have produced on the research topic greatly enhances your likelihood of getting funded.

You need to sound like you are already to begin the research and are just waiting for them to send the money!

As a student you have to be somewhat modest, you shouldn’t make large claims about your past contributions, and you need to be careful about dismissing other theoretical arguments – as there’s a possibility that you may offend the evaluator if they happen to be in the field.

With fellowship applications you have to balance between making the proposal readable to the non-specialist (as most readers will not be specialists) and at the same time appearing to be on the cutting edge in terms of the literature.

Research grant proposals tend to be read by experts – so emphasizing the cutting edge nature of the research is even more important.

For SSHRC research grant proposals you can often add as attachment either an article you have published on the research problem, or a research protocol (such as a questionnaire or interview schedule). This can provide additional evidence of your expertise.

As a student you should emphasize the resources available to you in your department and university. You should mention key course that you have taken that will facilitate your research. You should note faculty members who have expertise in your area with whom you can consult with (e.g. perhaps those on your committee, and those you have taken courses with). If there are other resources in your department that will assist your research then you should also mention them.

Time Table, Budget, Etc.

Developing a reasonably accurate time table and budget is important in that it strengthens the reader’s confidence that you know what you are talking about and have the expertise to carry out the research.

Developing a budget for research grants is tricky. On the one hand you do not want to appear to be inflating your budget. On the other hand, it is crucial that you do not under-estimate your expenses. For SSHRC research grants the evaluators often cut 20-30% of the budget. So you need to budget in a way that will allow you to still carry out your research even if your total budget gets trimmed.

You should make sure that you ask for everything you need (e.g., a laptop computer if you are working on the road, a tape recorder and cassettes for interviewing, accommodation costs if you are travelling, ample funds for long distance charges, photocopying, etc.).

Usually you are expected to indicate where you will disseminate the information you collect. Thus you should identify journals you will write articles for (or other outlets), and in your budget you should build in costs associated with attending and presenting at one or two conferences (though usually there is a limit for this item).

Trends and Additional Considerations

As noted earlier, my comments apply primarily to SSHRC funding, and the following comments are particularly relevant to SSHRC research grants.

Interdisciplinarity

In recent years “interdisciplinarity” has been highly encouraged.

Very often if you can develop an interdisciplinary research problem, and especially if you can develop an interdisciplinary research team, then your chances of success are increased.

Community Partners

In recent years that has been much encouragement to develop community partners (e.g., community organizations such as NGOs, and also private sector organizations). Indeed some special research programs have been developed where having a partner is a necessary condition for funding. In any event, having a community partner who will participate in the research and/or benefit from the research often enhances the quality of the proposal.

Student Training

For research grant applicants, having a student training component tends to enhance the quality of your proposal in the eyes of funding agencies like SSHRC. Saying that you will hire students as research assistants, indicating their role in the research, and indicating the types of training and experience that they will receive will be positively evaluated.

Ethics

Granting agencies will generally want a few details on procedures that will be undertaken to meet ethical guidelines (e.g., protecting the identity of participants, ensuring that published results are anonymous with respect to the responses of individuals, ensuring informed consent).

Of more practical importance, however, is the fact that as a university researcher your research money will be held by the office of research services until you get ethics approval from the university. So it is usually a good idea to complete the ethics package and submit it before you receive the grant.

Feedback

Just like with pre-testing a questionnaire, it is usually very helpful (especially for fellowship applications) to get multiple feedback on your proposal and then to revise it several times based on this feedback. If you give your proposal to four different people, chances are that you will receive at least 4 unique suggestions for improving the proposal (not everything might be useful, and you may get overlap, but usually everyone will have at least one useful comment).

Letters of Reference/Reviewers

Students applying for fellowships normally need to have faculty members write letters of reference. Research grant applicants normally have to specify external reviewers (or referees) of their proposal.

For students there are three main considerations 1) having someone write a letter who is familiar with your work (references letters that demonstrate intimate knowledge about the candidate’s skills and research are stronger); 2) having someone write a letter who has high prestige or visibility in the discipline or topic area (e.g., full professors have more prestige than assistant professors – and thus more influence); 3) having someone write a letter whom you think will give a very favourable evaluation.

Sometimes there are tensions between these three things. You may have to balance these considerations in the selection of references. At the very least, you need a positive letter.

To a certain extent similar considerations apply for research grant applicants – except, the reviewers normally have to be at arm’s length (e.g., not a thesis supervisor or a committee members, not a coauthor). One thing that is useful is to do a little research on the publications of the potential referees (and hopefully this will complement your work for the literature review component of your proposal).

A Useful Reference

A useful resource to draw upon in developing a proposal is:

Delbert C. Miller. 1991. Handbook of Research Design and Social Measurement. Fifth Edition. Newbury Park: Sage Publications.