Comments on: Unsolicited Advice X: How to Frame a Winning Proposal

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:42:36 +0000

OK, Julianne, I’m going to try your advice.

By: Howard Barnum

Howard Barnum — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:35:43 +0000

OK, Timon, I’m going to give it a try.

Here are my papers.

http://arxiv.org/find/quant-ph/1/au:+barnum/0/1/0/all/0/1

If you take the time to read them, you will see that I am doing interesting stuff which nobody else is doing. Send me any amount of money larger than 10 dollars at the following address. If you are a wealthy individual philanthropist, or a for-profit or not-for-profit corporation, or a government funding agency, make it more than $50,000. Canadian or US is OK; I’m not picky.

Yours sincerely,

Howard Barnum
Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
31 Caroline Street N, Waterloo, Ontario,
Canada N2L 2Y5

By: Marshall P

Marshall P — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:19:51 +0000

Nathan – the same strategies apply, though! Everything I just said about how I successfully applied for a postdoc fellowship I could equally have said about how I obtained a graduate fellowship (from NASA in my case, not the NSF – but using the same principles and organization, pretty much). Good luck!

By: Nathan

Nathan — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:34:28 +0000

Thanks Marshall P, I’m actually referring to the Graduate Fellowships due next week, though. I believe he postdoctoral fellowships were due a week or two ago.

By: Richard E.

Richard E. — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:39:51 +0000

Re Theorists and research proposals — I agree that these are hard to write, partly because if I knew what I was going to be doing two or three years from now, I would want to be doing it today.

But on the other hand, some theorists DO write much better proposals than others (which is one of the reasons why it is interesting to sit on grant panels — at least the first time, so as to see what a good, fundable proposal looks like), so this problem is not intractable. Personally, in a multi-year theoretical proposal, I am looking for evidence of “taste” — both in the choice of problem, and in the proposed plan to tackle it.

But it is worth reflecting that grant proposals are typically requests for fairly significant sums of money (at least on the personal scale) — often public money. It is not unreasonable that we should describe our plans for it before the check gets written.

By: piscator

piscator — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:34:56 +0000

On 18,19, this feels more applicable to experimental proposals than theory ones. Writing theory proposals for fellowships has always made me feel a little dirty. A fellowship is typically for a time period from (3+1)-(5+1) years from when it is written. However the half-life of most theory topics is 6-12 months. So one has to write this nice story about goals to be achieved in years 1,2,3,4 and 5 all the time knowing that you have no detailed idea what you will be working on in 2 years time let alone five years time.

By: Jonathan Vos Post

Jonathan Vos Post — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:31:11 +0000

Dear Mr. Newton.
Your proposal was well-written in Latin. Your Geometrical diagrams are elegant. Your Biblical quotations show deep understanding. However, we don’t see how sitting under an apple tree in Lincolnshire can do anything for understanding the orbit of the Moon, hence we suggest that you re-direct your proposal to some institution devoted to science of apple growing, which we understand is called pomology.
Good luck with your funding requests there.
Sincerely yours,
Royal Kinematics Research Administration.

By: Julianne

Julianne — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:22:12 +0000

And to follow-up on Marshall’s excellent advice, also make sure that the project won’t obviously spill over 3 years either. I’ve read proposals where the fellowship applicant has mapped out a plan that would take him/her through two postdocs and tenure, while claiming they would do it all during their fellowship.

By: Marshall P

Marshall P — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:11:47 +0000

@ 6 nathan:

The best way to win an NSF fellowship (or any other fellowship, really) is to talk with folks who have successfully applied for one in the past. Many will be willing to share their successful proposals with you if you ask nicely. I learned a tremendous amount about what makes a good proposal from *reading* good proposals. Talk to the postdocs at your institution, or get in touch with people you know who are a bit older and bit further along the career path.

(This is true, incidentally, at all stages of the game: whether applying to grad school, postdocs, faculty jobs, etc.! )

To give a slight variation on what Julianne has already said, one of the things I was told when I asked for advice from my own elders was that “A good job application is a three-legged stool”. You’ve got to convince your readers that
1) Topic X is interesting, but.
2) Here is how we’ll make progress on that ‘but’.
3) Here is why I, in particular, am the right person to make that progress.

In other words, when you’re applying for a job or fellowship, you need to emphasize that third leg a little bit more than you would for another kind of proposal like for telescope time.

Another piece of advice I would give for postdoc fellowships is to think about the timeline. You’re not just proposing for something you’re going to do next semester, or even next year. You’re generally proposing for three full years of funding! Show your readers that you’re aware of this. Does the size of the project you’re proposing fit properly in a three year period? What parts will you do in year 1, or year 2? What things need to happen along the way for you to progress? How many papers do you think will come out of the project? This doesn’t need to be a long section – but a paragraph or two can show you’ve thought about these matters, thereby demonstrating some scientific maturity.

By: coolstar

coolstar — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:17:53 +0000

Astronomy funding IS weird, with a big disconnect between ground-based and space-based: get time on HST, or Sptizer etc, you get funding also, get time on any ground-based telescope (I’m sure I’ll be told if there are exceptions I don’t know about) and THEN you write the other proposal to get the funds to pay (badly) the grad student or post-doc to do the work for you (yes, a tongue is somewhat inserted in-cheek, but only somewhat) or to get 2/9 of your pay to do the work you’re already being paid to do……(There are of course REAL and legitimate other costs such as travel, computers, page charges…)