In almost any project, the path between “a good idea” and the “final exciting result” contained a proposal. It may have been a proposal to obtain access to scarce resources (like telescopes or accelerator beams), or it may be have been a proposal to obtain other more prosaic resources (i.e., money, to pay for the needed personnel and supplies). Whatever the nature of the proposal, however, I guarantee that the competition was ridiculously stiff, and that the odds of having any given proposal accepted were quite low (for reference, in most astronomy contexts, over-subscription rates tend to be factors of 5-10). These unfavorable odds can be incredibly demoralizing. They also can have profoundly negative impacts on a talented scientist’s career, if the odds never manage to tip in their favor.
Given the inspiration of the looming Hubble Space Telescope deadline, I thought I would share some of my “big picture” views on crafting successful proposals, expanding significantly on the more succinct advice given in an earlier post. While I’ve developed these opinions based on my experience in astronomy, I suspect they’d apply to many other fields, both within and beyond science. So here goes…
