✦Research · 11 recordsWrite a grant application

Grant deadlines are absolute and the internal approvals nobody warns you about are what make them tight. This works backwards from the submission date and treats the administrative sign-off as a project of its own, because it is the half that runs late.

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✦ Everything it creates

The whole plan, before you install it

Goal

Submit a complete application, unhurried Month 2

Working back from a deadline that does not move.

The case Week 7

The part that is read second, and written first.

  • Check eligibility, limits and what the funder actually fundsDo firstDay 4
  • Draft the case for supportDo firstWeek 4
  • Get somebody outside the subfield to read itWeek 6

Budget and sign-off Month 2

Other people's calendars. The half that runs late.

  • Get the costings doneDo firstWeek 4
  • Request letters of supportWeek 5
  • Start institutional approvalDo firstWeek 8

Routines

  • An hour on the applicationweekly
✦ It comes with a note

The paperwork is the deadline

Costings, letters of support and institutional sign-off all wait on other people, and they are what turns a comfortable deadline into a difficult one. They start before the case is finished.\n\nEligibility, page limits and the budget rules are checked before the science is read. They are cheap to get right and fatal to get wrong.

✦ Questions

Write a grant application, answered.

This plan runs on ten weeks, most of which is not writing. Costings, letters of support and institutional sign-off all depend on other people's calendars, and they are what turns a comfortable deadline into a difficult one.
Eligibility, page limits, missing annexes and a budget that does not follow the funder's rules. All four are cheap to check and are checked before the science is read, which is why they sit as their own dated tasks here.
Somebody outside your subfield, early enough that their comments can change something. A reviewer panel is rarely made only of specialists, and a case that only reads well to an expert is a case that has not been made.
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