5 suggestions to increase grant application success rates

Abstract

A few suggestions and advice to increase the success chances of your grant application.

Science is becoming ever more competitive and securing grant funding in such a hypercompetitive environment is extremely challenging. As just some examples from Europe (all statistics taken from the respective funding agencies' websites), in 2020, the Swedish Research Council had a funding success rate of 18% (2,036 applications) in the Natural sciences and engineering category; the UKRI 2020–2021 success rate was 21%; and the European Research Council had an estimated success rate of 16% for the 2022 Starting Grants call. Moving up in seniority, the ERC Advanced Grant scheme for 2020 had a success rate of 8%. While an 18–20% success rate is still manageable in terms of being able to reasonably evaluate and select grant proposals based on merit, this becomes much more challenging as success rates fall below 15% or even 10%. That is, it becomes effectively impossible to make a meaningful distinction between the top 12% and top 17% of proposals, and an increasing amount of arbitrariness and luck enters the decision‐making.

As someone who sits on both sides of the table, as a researcher applying for funding, and as a research evaluator (ad hoc and as a panelist), the situation is demoralizing. As a panelist, you see a large number of excellent ideas that are left unfunded; as an applicant, you know that even a perfect grant proposal can be rejected for reasons that feel largely arbitrary. This is particularly so at the early stage of independence when you do not have substantial experience in grant writing while you are trying to establish and finance your own research program for the first time.

What can be done to maximize the success rate in such a hypercompetitive funding environment? Obviously, the most important determining factors are going to be the track record of the applicant and the team, as well as the quality of the idea driving the proposal—relative weighting of track record and proposal will depend on the specific funding scheme. However, in such low‐success rate environments, while having a relevant and sufficiently strong track record and an impactful idea are pre‐requisites for securing funding, they are not sufficient.

The point of this column is to share five of my “best‐practice” experiences, as an applicant and as a panelist. This is not going to be a formula for guaranteeing your grant proposal will be successful, because there is no such guarantee. However, this may, at least, help to increase your chances so that your proposals enter the region of fundable proposals where the determining factor becomes less quality and more luck.

1. When we write a grant proposal, we often add every bit of relevant information and expect that evaluators will read every detail of the densely packed text. It is important to remember that ad hoc reviewers and panelists typically evaluate a large number of proposals, often with tight deadlines. They will for sure read the proposal at least once, but one cannot expect more than that. Moreover, panelists are not necessarily direct experts in your specific sub‐field. A senior colleague once told me that he/she usually starts by reading the abstract and introduction and, if those do not make sense, then jumps to the conclusions. If at that point the applicant has not managed to get the point across, the applicant has lost him/her. Bottom line: it is important to write with as much clarity as possible, get to the point quickly, and remember that you need to sell your idea on the first read. If possible, try to get feedback from trusted colleagues that are close to but not directly in your sub‐field.

2. This may sound obvious, but do read the instructions very carefully. There are often critical details hidden in the small print that can have a major impact on whether the grant is funded or not. For instance, I applied unsuccessfully to the same charitable foundation years in a row until a group member pointed out that, hidden away in the small print, they explicitly state they do not fund biomedical research. The next time I put in a more fundamental biochemical project and was funded on first attempt. In addition, some funding agencies will also provide evaluation guidelines for reviewers and panelists along with the call text. If these are available, read them with as much care as the instructions to applicants, because if you know the criteria you are being evaluated on, you can adapt your proposal accordingly.

3. Enthusiasm. If you are not excited about your research, how can the reviewer be? Clearly, you consider your project important and exciting enough to invest your time preparing the proposal and the more of that enthusiasm you can get across, the better.

4. Important as point 3 is, it is also important to remember that it’s impossible to please everyone, in particular if the panel is broad. Do not try to game your proposal to target specific evaluators you expect to be on the panel: you might end up gaining one evaluator and losing others as proposals are typically evaluated by multiple reviewers. Focus on writing a strong proposal with a broad appeal, and one that you really believe in.

5. What is eventually going to win over the panel and evaluators is the quality of your proposal. However, in a hypercompetitive environment where every small thing can positively or negatively impact on success, visuals become really important. A sloppily presented proposal, however high quality otherwise, will create a negative impression on the reader. It is an extra time investment to make sure presentation is as streamlined as possible and figures are as high quality as possible, but it is worth the investment.

These are all rather simple suggestions, but they are often overlooked. For me, these are the five most important rules I try to follow when preparing any grant proposal. They do not guarantee success, but they have helped me a lot in the hypercompetitive funding environment we are all in. I hope you will also find it helpful as you write your first independent grant proposals.

EMBO reports (2022) 23: e54893.