The Grant Writing and Crowdfunding Guide for Young Investigators in Science

The following sections are included:

• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments

Phone calls, we know. Roll calls, schoolchildren know. Home calls, doctors know. Grant calls? Grantors know. It’s their call. The grantor is in charge, but in charge of what? Of giving you the money you need to conduct research? Yes and no…

At 9.00 pm, on Wednesday, 6 July, plumber and soccer enthusiast Robert Smill has an idea that can change the course of medical science… forever. It’s very simple, really — all he has to do is to convert common substance A into rare substance B through a chemical process, encapsulate it within a semi-soluble bio-digestible membrane, and optimize a dosing algorithm for its delivery. It’s a brilliant solution to an age-old problem with an approach that is as innovative as it is inexpensive. Only one problem — Robert Smill is a plumber. He is not a chemist, not a biomembrane specialist, and certainly not a mathematician. In other words, without the proper expertise, his revolutionary idea is worthless…

The following sections are included:

• Assemble and Manage the Grant Team
• The Case for Collaborators
• The Case against Collaborators
  • Academia
  • Industry
  • Dangerous Collaborations
• Team Up with the World to Gain World Impact
• Learn Team Science

You may choose to read this chapter through sequentially to get a broad overview of the many terms in use, or choose to refer to it when you encounter an unfamiliar term in this book or in your own grant call…

The title of your grant appears early in a grant application. Sometimes it is right on top, and sometimes it immediately follows the list of PIs and other members of the team. Either way, it is the point of entry into the contents of your grant. Not only should it catch the eye, it should also catch the imagination of the reader. It should give shape to your idea and make it visible. A grant title is thought provoking, and in the mind of the reader, its words should strike a chord that vibrates to form a thought rich with readerinduced harmonics. A word of warning, however: as beneficial as a good title can be to your grant, a bad title can damage your chances just as much. If it does not provoke, it fails. If it is too general (generic words such as Asian, metal, or food), it fails. If what is significant is not easily inferred from the title, it fails.

In the previous chapter, we looked at the grant as a product, and established the importance of its packaging — title and abstract. We have already covered the front of the box, the title, so we now turn our attention to the back of the box: the abstract…

Goals are grand, but difficult to pitch. Imagine that your goal is to cure a rare disease. Should a benefactor approach you and ask you about your plans to cure that disease, would you answer: “Step 1: cure disease”? Most probably not. You would present a more detailed plan — complete with specific aims. The specific aims section of your grant tells the reader WHAT you will need to do to succeed and meet your objective…

A movie is a large project involving large budgets and the hundreds of people you see in the rolling credits. Have you ever wondered how such large projects start? Most scriptwriters start with a logline that creates tension, the desire to know more, a one liner scenario such as these:

A British researcher whose hobby is to collect DNA samples from famous dead people discovers that her grandfather is related to Hitler.

An activist tries to stop the domino effect his fake news started on Wall Street after he discovers it is making the old pensioners in his neighborhood destitute.

Imagine the following scenario. For years, you’ve tried to develop transparent solar panels. Their unique characteristics fill your mind with potential applications and promising research paths — all of which are closed to you due to a frustratingly common limitation: their cost. Synthesizing the material for the panel is a lengthy, expensive process, costing a prohibitive $15k per panel to manufacture. That is, until now. After reading a recent biochemistry paper, it dawns on you that perhaps existing approaches have tackled the problem from the wrong direction. In a brilliant flash of insight, you realize that the application of biochemical methodologies in the field of smart materials may be able to decrease the cost tremendously while retaining the same manufacturing time and quality standards. You passionately draft your grant proposal, and quickly jot down your significance statement predicting a tenfold decrease in cost to $1.5k per panel…

No one has ever found exceptional success by pursuing a life of mediocrity. No employee has ever been promoted for their average workmanship, no employer has ever been impressed by the banality of its interviewee, and no entrepreneur has ever been funded for an idea that made venture capitalists internally exclaim “How average!” To be exceptional, one has to be the exception — to strive beyond what is done, what is seen, and break away from the status quo…

“… And I strongly believe that my contribution will change this field of science, forever.” You type one final period, attach all of the required documents and send your application off into the great unknown. All that is left for you to do is to wait and hope for a favorable response. While your job is done, that application is only just setting a great machine into motion behind the curtain of the grantor’s application portal: the reviewing process…

There’s no doubt: grants are risky. And risk has a natural negative connotation — the risk as threat. But, as illustrated in the expression the risk paid off, risk has also a positive side — the risk as opportunity. Innovation is rarely without risk, and innovation is what the grantor seeks. There is little to gain in risk-free business-as-usual proposals that require no incentive to induce change. For the value of present opportunities to exceed the cost of future threats, there’s no alternative: both grantor and grantee have to manage risks…

The following sections are included:

• Understand the Failure Statistics
• Avoid the Approach Pitfall
• Avoid the Scope Pitfall
  • Fit to Time
  • Fit to Budget
  • Fit to Team
  • Fit to Scale and Fit to Needs
  • Fit to Measure and Fit to Test
• The Credibility Issue
• Resubmission
• Learn from Experienced Panel Members

This book is fundamentally about helping you fund your research. When asked how you plan to obtain funds, you will invariably look towards the funding structures you are most familiar with: your institute, or grantors. We would like to add a new possibility to this short lineup, one that was until very recently impossible without the aid of social media and Internet technologies. When asking for money, we tend to look up. Have you ever considered looking around instead? Welcome to crowdfunding.