Writing a grant proposal Step II

Friday, 16 July 2010 02:34

This week my PI and I decided to definitely go for the deadline application for a grant in September. This makes me very excited and I am glad we are finally going to apply. The longer I wait, the busier I will be and the more difficult it will get to write the proposal. On the other hand, this deadline is already in a few weeks, which means that I have to hurry and spend the most of my time in the lab and during my evenings working on this proposal.

One of my colleagues had a good advice to start with an outline of the project….just to write down everything, like the great aim of the project (which then can be subdivided into smaller aims if necessary), hypothesis, background and previous research, methods and techniques which will be applied and some of my preliminary data.

And this is where I am now…writing an outline and I must say it feels pretty good, just to get it out of my head. I hope to send it next week to my PI, adapt it afterwards and the next step is to write the real project summary based on this outline.

Soon, I also have to arrange the reference letters and make sure I have all the approvals of the ethical committee ready, in case I need it for my experiments described in the proposal. And prepare some figures….It’s going to be tough... However, this projects makes me very motivated and excited and that makes it so much easier.