Proposals and Grants
Proposal Planning Outline
This brief outline shows the steps to be taken when preparing a proposal. Print it to use as a checklist.
- Conceptualize project
- Search for and identify funding sources
- Review funding agency's guidelines
- (For help, contact your Contracts or Grants Officer)
- Collect or identify funding agency application forms and campus approval forms
- Assemble project information and begin writing proposal
- Establish timeline for project
- Identify necessary staff and equipment
- Draft proposal
(see Writing Tips)
Draft Proposal - Work with Department Administrator to develop budget for:
- Grants and federal/state contracts
- Other contracts
- Clinical trials
- Finalize statement of work and check committee deadlines
- Identify regulatory and campus review requirements (Animal/Human/Biosafety/Financial Disclosure)
- Complete sponsor application and campus approval forms
- Submit proposal package for administrative approval. Visit ORA Hours & Mailing Address for location.
- Submit proposal to funding agency by deadline
- Proposal/protocol review by campus committees
- Check for protocol decisions
Proposal Writing Guidelines
Introduction
From the inception of an idea to the final application package, writing a grant proposal requires custom tailoring. Individual sections of a proposal require different strategies, and proposals to different types of funders (such as federal agencies and foundations) follow different sets of conventions.
The following links represent some of the clearest and most comprehensive web-based guides to these strategies and conventions. We include two sites that are especially useful for federal agencies and two that discuss foundation funding processes. If you're trying to figure out where to start, visit one or more of these links.
A Word of Caution
For all types of proposals, the funding organization's guidelines should be your bible. It seems like an obvious point, but researchers often neglect to follow the application guidelines established by funding agencies and organizations. Now, more than ever, this practice can have serious consequences. Funding agencies are cracking down, and many will no longer read a proposal that doesn't strictly adhere to the guidelines.
For instance, otherwise excellent proposals have been returned to researchers unread when they exceeded an NIH or NSF formatting limitation of 15 characters per horizontal inch. This requirement is tricky, because although many agencies say that 10-point type is acceptable, some fonts, such as Times and Times New Roman, run at 19 characters per inch in 10 points. The moral of the story: measure an inch and count the characters. If you are tempted to exceed the page limit, or to fudge the margins or the point size, listen to your good angel, and don't. If necessary, call in an editor to pare down your proposal.
For writing guides, visit the following links:
- U of Michigan
Directions are clear and to the point; excellent for all disciplines and funding agencies - All About Grants Tutorials
For NIH proposals - The Foundation Center
Good outline for foundation proposals - The Art of Writing Proposals
Tips from the Social Science Research Council; useful writing strategies for other disciplines as well.
Grant Proposal Editing Service
Mark Twain said the difference between the right word and the wrong word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. Technically, grant proposals are ranked on merit alone. However, peer reviewers are human and, all else being equal, a grant proposal that is well-written, lucid and compelling stands a better chance of being funded.
The Office of Research Development offers a grant review/editing service to faculty, graduate students, and their support staff who would like "another pair of eyes." Generally, turn around is less than two or three days.
Faculty who have made use of the service report that their prose is improved without loss of ideational content, distortion of project concept, or blunting of their original thrust. And mistakes are taken out, too!
The service is free to UCI personnel. Contact Randy Black, Research Development Manager, at rbblack@uci.edu or x7912.
