With all the proposal deadlines I have been wondering how fast can be write up a successful grant proposal from scratch provided that one has the idea and the required preliminary data to write such a grant.
So the blogosphere: What is your minimum number of days needed to write up a successful grant proposal?
One of my least favorite moments in grad school was one particular submission to the NIH. I got all the prelim data my advisor wanted 1 month before the deadline. 3 days before the deadline he decided that we should start writing it. We thought we knew what we wanted, but we didn't realize the holes and how to plug them until we actually started writing. Over 3 days the two of us worked 20 hours each day, our critical thinking abilities started falling apart. We got it done and got scored but not funded (I was sure we'd get streamlined). I'm glad I got a lot of grant experience in grad school, but for all that is holy, please take at least a week of semi-dedicated writing. I felt horrible after this and it was all for nothing.
ReplyDeleteApart from ideas and preliminary data, a big limiting factor in writing up a grant is one's ability to present their idea's precisely and concisely. That comes with experience. The answer to your question is rather subjective so you could get a range of timelines from a week to a couple months.
ReplyDeleteBtw, no one can tell you for sure how to write a "successful" grant proposal ;)
Oh Yes I know that part. I have written two successful ones but I haven't worked on this kind of time line before. So I am just curious ;)
DeleteAim for 3-4 weeks for sure. Probably longer since you are kinda new to the game, so you can get people's input!
ReplyDelete