The Magical World of Grant Proposals
Receiving money from the government is often compared to a constant race to an ever receding finish line.
In all labs of all parts of science, money funds expensive machinery and helps in the acquisition of expensive materials used in lab work. However, the government has another purpose aside from just handing out money. Through the use of grant proposals, the government can monitor and direct research work that is being carried out across the country.
Grant proposals are official requests for funding from the NIH or NSF, two government funding organizations. The proposals are rigidly defined with a particular organization that the lab must follow. The first section in a proposal is usually the abstract, a general overview of the focus and an explanation as to why the project should happen. After that is the “specific aims” section, which is a list of answers to questions relating to what should be expected. Next is the background section, where the applicant describes what other research has been done to build up to this project. The last section is methods and materials, which is a step-by-step explanation of how the applicant plans on carrying out the project. This rigid organization helps the government fairly judge if a project should be funded or not.
When it is completed, the grant proposal then must be approved. It is sent to a review panel to determine if it’s worth funding. The review panel is made up of a group of thirty researchers who review grants in the same area of research every session. For example, there is a panel for the delivery of genes for cancer therapy, and they review all grant proposals from that part of the field. The board’s expertise in a particular area of research is important when reviewing a grant proposal is important so that they may ascertain whether a project is relevant enough to fund. It would be pointless to fund an impossible project with too many specific aims, or a project that is too similar to the work of another lab. By funding research throughout the country, the government can help direct the nation’s research by selective funding. Although choosing what labs across the country can and cannot research may not seem morally incisive, the alternative would be worse. Without the national government’s direction and with unsupervised government funding, labs would research only what interests them and would get the most attention, and many other fields of research would be neglected.
Professor Horst von Recum, assistant professor in the biomedical engineering department, is currently working with one of his graduate students on writing a grant proposal for her graduate fellowship. This exposure to grant proposals at an early stage in her career is important so that she may perfect the methods and organization of the application process. In continuing the process of grant proposals, the government can continue monitoring the research across the country, so as to be more efficient in handing out grant money and federal funding.
Comments
Posted by: Zach
Posted on: November 19, 2007 05:53 PM
Haha, very nice Franco I like it!