Why I love writing Grant Proposals

This post is about why I love writing grant proposals for getting my research funded. Not all academics do. I have come across many who consider grant writing as a chore and a necessary evil which interferes with the real business of actually doing science and publishing the work (some even hate writing papers; it's only the investigative process that really gets them excited). The facts that proposals require much work and many if not most of them get rejected also add to the distaste some academics feel for the task. Therefore, I would not be surprised if any of them look at the title of this post and declare me to be mentally unbalanced.

1. Cohesion: For me writing a grant is a process seeded by my own work as well as extensive reading of the literature (what others have done in the field). When I sit down to write the grant, I am forced to evaluate my own research in the light of the story I would like to tell in the proposal, something I might not have realized while writing the relevant paper(s). Likewise, I am forced to arrange my knowledge of the literature and fill in the many gaps that are bound to arise from my mostly disorganized reading (the typical way to explore).

   
   

   This is a very valuable experience, since the aim is learning, and creation of knowledge. I am not sure I would have sat down and gone through such a process if I had not been obliged to write a grant (and only obliged to write papers). The proposal thus provides a substantial framework for understanding the field and pushing innovation.

   
   

2. Direction: Roughly speaking, a substantial grant determines the next 3-5 years of research in a group. Of course, not everything planned in the grant may happen, but, just like in life, it is good to have a plan for research.

   
   

   It almost a given that some accidental discoveries will occur in the course of the work, which were totally unanticipated in the grant. This is because no one is smart enough to predict the future comprehensively. It is in the nature of scientific discovery, and in fact sometimes the accidental discoveries are more important and consequential than the work that was originally proposed in the grant. This is actually an exciting part of servicing a grant contract. The funding agencies are more than happy to accommodate it and in fact know such things happen quite often.

   
   

   Everything taken together, a grant is where we get to set a whole new direction/theme for the field. This perspective tends to look at a paper as a point, and at a grant as an arrow (i.e. a sequence of points indicating a direction).

   
   

3. Ideation: For me there are few things as exciting as a new idea. Some, if not all, of the best science is highly creative. (I should say here that I believe any high achievement, in science or art or in fact any field, has two facets. One is creativity, which is the mastery of simplicity. The other is technical skill, which is the mastery of complexity).

   
   

   Grant proposals are the natural habitat of creative ideas. That is where we get to play with them, to point out their relevance and to flesh them out. Now the plane of creative ideas is also where I like to exist. At an abstract level, this means I love toying with ideas all the time and am itching to put them into grants. Practically, this means that having written the grant, I kind of know what kind of papers will emerge from it. The task of fleshing these papers out is really that of postdocs and graduate students, I believe, with no more than 10-15% input from the professor. Capable undergraduates can and do, of course, contribute to this as well. In other words, as a research faculty I feel my main task is to write grants.

   
   

4. Approbation: Successful grants are reviewed and supported by program managers and/or scientific peers. Although I have plenty of gripes about the review process, I think it is very important to have a vetting mechanism for research ideas. Some kind of review or competition should exist which ensures that the research grant can survive criticism and competition (from other grants). This ensures quality control, directional correction, relevance to the pressing problems of the day, and societal responsibility (we are using taxpayer money for conducting research). I was pleased to learn, for example, a few years ago, that a Nobel laureate in chemistry had his grant turned down (i.e. resume is not everything).

   
   

   I know of colleagues in other countries who are each given the same basic amount of research money (a more socialistic system compared to the capitalistic functioning in the United States, where superstar researchers pull in many more grants than the 'average' scientist) without having to compete for it. In fact, very recently, a colleague from one such country declared proudly to me that he does not have to write any grants. This leads to lower stress, undoubtedly, and more equity for everybody, but I am not sure it leads to the best science.