Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 16
Grantsmanship
There is no success without hardship.
Sophocles
It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
Lawrence J. Peter
Grant Writing
Grants are the lifeblood of any scientific investigator at a university. It is almost
impossible for an Assistant Professor with a research appointment in Food Science
to be promoted and tenured without obtaining grants. Grants are needed to purchase
new equipment, fund graduate students, and grind out publications. The politics of
obtaining funds from industry and government are somewhat different, but both
require justification and written reports to obtain the necessary monetary support to
run a lab. In industry, funding tends to be directed at reducing operating expenses or
generating profit for the company although some companies still retain a basic
research component that serves as a long-range incubator of product ideas and a
status symbol. Government tends to operate more like universities but with a more
rigid structure of project proposals, periodic reporting, and performance review.
The rest of the chapter will be devoted to grant writing by university researchers, but
both business entities and governmental researchers may be involved in pursuing
federal grants. Industry scientists may never write a formal grant proposal, but they
may be required to serve as liaison to a university project being funded by their
company. Likewise, a governmental scientist may be asked to review grant propos-
als by various agencies.
The first step in any grant process is finding a funding source that matches our
research interests and capabilities with their program objectives. There are numer-
ous funding sources looking for scientists to meet their needs. An intensive search
is usually necessary (Chapin,
2004
). Most universities have searchable databases by
keyword. They may also have an alert system for announcements of new projects
