Writing a Research Grant Proposal
The core of your student grant application is your original project proposal. A good proposal will describe what you hope to accomplish, why those objectives will be important to your chosen field, and how you intend to achieve them.
A good grant proposal will be concise:
- Major grant proposal should be 2500 words or less
- Quarterly grant proposals should be 1500 words or less
A good grant proposal will address the following:
Objective: Describe the precise goal of the project. What specific question will be answered, or what hypothesis will be tested? What themes do you want to explore? This section should be a highly focused statement of your project objectives.
Significance: Describe why your question is intellectually important. Critique the peer-reviewed literature to illustrate what others have done in relation to your question.
- How will your project contribute to this literature?
- How will your objectives and methods expand or challenge the discipline?
- What form will your final product take?
Methodology: Explain what, precisely, you will do to answer the question you are posing. Your methodology and your logistical plan help reviewers evaluate your chances of success.
- Discuss how the data, analyses, or interpretations in your methodology are logically linked to the goals or questions you present in your Objective.
- Explain the steps you will take to achieve these goals, how you will achieve them, and what obstacles you anticipate.
- Provide a timeline to give a clear picture of how your project will develop. Describe milestones that will gauge your progress within that timeline.
Resources & Preparation: How will you draw on the expertise of your faculty mentor? Are there other contact people who will be instrumental in your project? What specific steps have you taken to prepare for this project? Have you taken courses in the methods, statistics, or techniques that directly relate to the project design you described above?