3.2 Promoting your proposal
Once you have decided on the grant scheme to which you intend to apply for funding, you need to think about the most effective way to promote your proposal.
For better or worse, this is primarily a marketing exercise, not the production of a fully-fledged academic paper. As with all marketing, you need to attract attention quickly. The first sentences are critical. It is instructive to note that in the ARC assessment process for Discovery Projects the bottom two-thirds of all applications are usually excluded within about 10 minutes. This is because there are a large number of applications and limited funding. To highlight this point, in the 2011 funding outcomes for its Discovery Grants, the ARC reported that of the 4,230 proposals which were considered for funding commencing in 2008, only 931 were approved for funding. This gave an overall success rate for grant proposals of 22.0%. (Source: http://www.arc.gov.au/ncgp/dp/DP11_selrpt.htm#4 )
In preparing your proposal, there are a number of factors to keep in mind. Your application needs to succinctly but fully describe an innovative or novel problem, hypothesis, or challenge. It needs to describe how you and your team, based on your experience and expertise, are best placed to conduct the proposed research. The detail of the actual research needs to balance technicality and accessibility, avoiding too much technical jargon. You need to put forward a plausible approach, and back up your claims with evidence. Basically, the funding body is going to be looking for a high-quality outcome.
In considering the actual resources required, don't over-ask and don't under-ask. Wanting to do something truly amazing is admirable and understandable, but will not look too good if you are then unable to deliver it. A lack of realism may create the impression that you have a poor understanding of the problem or poor research methodology. You also must be able to justify each aspect of your proposed budget, e.g. the level of staff necessary to support your research.
As with the earlier scoping of your research proposal, this is another time when you should seek out feedback from your peers, colleagues, etc.
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