It has been a long time since I had much to do with any Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) grants, but since the deadline is coming up on the 15th for the Standard Research Grants Program, I thought that it might be useful to post a few thoughts in that direction.

Useful links and other information:

• SSHRC Standard Research Grants Program Description

• SSHRC online system
• Tri-Council Financial Administration Guide
• Jo VanEvery, a fellow grant coach, has an e-book called “Writing your SSHRC Grant Proposal” available on her website. According to her page “A friend . . . calls it ‘the instructions you wish SSHRC gave you’.” It will help applicants navigate the tricky questions of “I read books and think big thoughts. What do I put in a methodology section?”.

When I have some time, I would like to read Jove’s book. I’m sure that her experiences as a SSHRC Program Officer gave her unique insight into how to approach (and avoid) many of the common pitfalls SSHRC applicants face.

Often, one of the toughest parts of grant writing is getting that first draft of the research proposal down on paper. Last year I wrote a post on “Springing out of the writing block” and the advice there is still pertinent today.

The best tip for getting past the inertia of being overwhelmed is to break down the tasks. This post includes a list of all the tasks for getting a Discovery grant proposal together. Look through the list and identify some tasks that you can accomplish. Small steps, even ones that seem trivial, are still steps toward the goal of a completed application.

Another advantage of taking the time to plan out the steps in your calendar is that you will have fewer “Ack, I still have to do xxx!” moments in the minutes/hours/days before the deadline. Taking care of these tasks earlier in the timeline will help make the grant application process a little easier to fit into your already overloaded schedule. It is worth noting that many of the required tasks take less time when you not stressed and early birds avoid the frustrations of the pre-deadline NSERC online system.

If you don’t already have a draft of your proposal in hand, take a few moments to write out the heading pieces and start outlining your grant proposal. (See this post for the required headings.) Even this small step will make the future ones a little less daunting.

How can a returning applicant position themselves for success? These points are relevant to any funding agency or program, not just NSERC or the NSERC Discovery program.

1. FOLLOW THE RULES – take the time to refresh yourself on the funding agencies needs, wants and application rules, because the game may have changed since your previous application. This is especially important for budget items – what was allowable 5 years ago might be verboten today.

2. TAKE OWNERSHIP & DO YOUR HOMEWORK – if you are getting several people to write pieces of the grant, make sure that the final product is cohesive and accurately fact checked.

3. GET THE LITTLE STUFF OUT OF THE WAY EARLY – update your CV and prepare your supporting manuscript packages when you submit your LOI (letter of intent). This will reduce your stress at the submission deadline.

4. CONSIDER STRETCHING YOUR BOUNDARIES – some committees want to see more of the same and others want to see researchers push the boundaries. Do you see your program of research making incremental steps or giant leaps forward? Position yourself competitively – do your research on what the committee has funded in previous years.

5. AVOID EGO CREEP – “I have an impressive track record; therefore anything that I want to do is brilliant and does not require description or explanation.” Don’t take anything for granted. This is related to points 1 and 2 – just because you have a substantial research resume does not mean that you can skip certain steps in the application process or do not need to explain your research rationale thoroughly.

Agree, disagree? Post your comments below.

Last week, I started to dip into the NSERC Discovery grant budget development process.

I have been getting quite a few comments, but my spam filters have been catching almost all of them. If you have posted comments and they have not been approved, please email me (via the website feedback page) to ensure that I process your comment appropriately. A little trick for skipping the filters: don’t include any links. Thanks!

Here is a recap of last week’s posts:

DG2010 – Evaluation Changes reviewed some of the changes to the evaluation process for the Discovery grant competition. I have had a few comments on this post via email regarding a misunderstanding of how the binning process will be applied. I am working on clarifying my understanding so that I can post a refined view of how this will work (or did work last year).

DG2008 & DG2009 Scatter Plots is a quick view of the scatter plot slide from the NSERC DG2010 information sessions. This data provides a bit more context to the Evaluation Changes post.

DG2010 – Building a (Normal!) Budget describes the importance of linking the budget request with the actual research work planned. Links to sites for calculating the budget ranges for GSCs from previous competitions and the NSERC Awards Search Engine are included.

Discovery Grants – Budget Breakdowns revists a post from The Accidental Mathematician on how research budgets are spent in math and stats.

DG2010 – Budget Rules of Thumb is an updated post from the last DG competition summarizing collected wisdom on budgetary rules of thumb. Be advised not to take these rules of thumb for face value — be sure to critically analyze whether these assumptions make sense for your research.

As mentioned in the notes for the Evaluation Changes posts, I am working on clarifying my understanding of the binning process and hope to provide updates soon. If you have any thoughts or knowledge of the process feel free to drop me a line!

I haven’t written all the posts for the rest of this week yet, so I don’t have a preview of what is coming up next. Stay tuned!

The following is a non-exhaustive list of rules of thumb for budgets (hopefully I don’t get skewered for putting this in print):

Equipment

• a computer purchase can be estimated at ~$2.5k

• Don’t forget to include the cost of federal and provincial taxes in your purchase – don’t let yourself be blindsided by these – they are real and justifiable parts of your cost (most academic institutions only pay a proportion of the GST, therefore use the unrebated portion of the tax in your calculations)
• If you have a large piece of equipment in your lab, you can ask for peripherals to expand/extend use (i.e. lenses for a microscope, etc.)

Materials & Supplies

• Life science disciplines, multiply the number of people supported by the grant by $10k (i.e. 2 grad students and a half time technician = $25k request) adjust downward if you don’t have enzyme or animal costs

• For grants involving cellular, molecular, developmental, biomedical, etc. research, assume an average real cost of ~ $1.5k per month ($18k per year) in supplies
• If you plan to hire undergraduate researchers (summer or otherwise) plan for additional materials and supplies expenses (for wastage)

Travel

• $4-5k for the PI, $1-2k per each supervised student/post-doc

• Aim for about 5% of total budget request

Dissemination

• Estimate ~$1k per paper, unless you use open source publications, then estimate ~$2.5k per paper

Other

• $200-1k for the cost of miscellaneous items such as photocopying, faxing, printing, toner cartridges, etc.

Do you have other rules of thumb to share? Please feel free to add by commenting on this post or sending me an email. I’ll post a more comprehensive list as material becomes available.

(Note: This post was originally posted in October 2008, but I’m not above recycling good information when I’m short on time. It is slightly updated. Hope you find it useful!)