Successful grant proposal writing is a fundamental basis to fund a career in research. There are plenty of national and international funding programmes with different funding schemes. Each scheme has its individual context and thematic focus, eligibility and funding rules, submission and evaluation process, and evaluation criteria. Thus, the detailed features and aspects of a successful proposal in one funding scheme are naturally differing from those of a successful proposal in another funding scheme. However, the process of how to work out these details is a common denominator to the different funding schemes. It requires skills way beyond the ability to work out a research idea in detail.The overall proposal writing starts with the generation of a new research idea and the identification of an appropriate funding scheme. This requires knowledge on funding programmes and their scientific, political or societal background. Here, documents and professionals from contact points and funding authorities may be of much help.For an excellent grant proposal, it is necessary to match the research idea with the evaluators’ view on what is wanted by the funding scheme and what is considered fit for funding. This usually requires work on the details of the idea and the specific research context.After this has been concluded, the work on the actual project and proposal can be started. A concept has to be developed, ideas, workplan and the approach have to be visualised, the budget needs to be planned and the overall proposal has to be structured and formulated. If other project partners or institutions are involved, the submission of documents has to be coordinated.Therefore, the objective of this workshop is, that students obtain an overview on funding opportunities, understand the core aspects of winning grants and know how to adapt the proposal writing process to their funding scheme of choice.Depending on the duration of the training, exercises are focused on different process steps and required skills. [more]

Applying for a position in research requires not only a CV, a letter of motivation, a list of publications and references but also a research statement. They are targeted to the job advertisement and the mission of the research group and its hosting research organisation:First, we will understand the function of the different parts of an application to a research position such as letter of motivation, CV, research statement and references. Participants are asked to bring a job application, so that they can receive a targeted feedback during the second day of the workshop.We will then define the different core elements of a research agenda, their objectives in the context of the job application and the key elements they should cover.Participants will then write their own research statement. Based on these examples we will look into approaches for a targeted motivation of the research agenda, the targeted communication of the background and current research as well as a convincing set-up of the research agenda.Depending on time and interests of the participants, we will use the Researcher Development Framework by Vitae UK to investigate into skills and competencies. Based on these a strategy will be developed to convincingly justify the principal investigator’s expertise. [more]

Successful grant proposal writing is a fundamental basis to fund a career in research. There are plenty of national and international funding programmes with different funding schemes. Each scheme has its individual context and thematic focus, eligibility and funding rules, submission and evaluation process, and evaluation criteria. Thus, the detailed features and aspects of a successful proposal in one funding scheme are naturally differing from those of a successful proposal in another funding scheme. However, the process of how to work out these details is a common denominator to the different funding schemes. It requires skills way beyond the ability to work out a research idea in detail.The overall proposal writing starts with the generation of a new research idea and the identification of an appropriate funding scheme. This requires knowledge on funding programmes and their scientific, political or societal background. Here, documents and professionals from contact points and funding authorities may be of much help.For an excellent grant proposal, it is necessary to match the research idea with the evaluators’ view on what is wanted by the funding scheme and what is considered fit for funding. This usually requires work on the details of the idea and the specific research context.After this has been concluded, the work on the actual project and proposal can be started. A concept has to be developed, ideas, workplan and the approach have to be visualised, the budget needs to be planned and the overall proposal has to be structured and formulated. If other project partners or institutions are involved, the submission of documents has to be coordinated.Therefore, the objective of this workshop is, that students obtain an overview on funding opportunities, understand the core aspects of winning grants and know how to adapt the proposal writing process to their funding scheme of choice.Depending on the duration of the training, exercises are focused on different process steps and required skills. [more]