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    SPIRAL - The Faculty of Science Grant Writing Challenge
    Provider   Organisational and Staff Development Unit

    The purpose of this 6 months in-depth programme is to improve grant writing skills in order to increase the successful funding of grant applications.

Duration 5 sessions

Course Type Series

Booking Status Archived

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Target Audience: Academic staff who are writing grants and wishing additional in-depth support

This is a series - please click on the “show series” button under course dates to toggle all dates and book Ü

Successful grant writing is key to being a successful academic.  The Grant Writing Challenge will offer a structured programme of workshops, milestones and departmental mentoring to enhance your grant writing skills.  This will:

  • Improve participants grant writing skills and increase the chances of their grants being funded.
  • Provide a series of milestones providing adequate time to reflect, improve and finally submit the proposal.
  • Put participants in touch with fellow grant writers so they benefit from their support and feedback. 

Crucially, the Grant Writing Challenge is led by Strathclyde academics with significant track record of grant success. It is a 6-month programme with 3 meetings before the summer and 2 after the summer as well as support provided through a departmental mentor.

Session 1 - Good Grant Writing: Wednesday 25 April 2018, 2-4.30pm 
An introduction to good grant writing, focussing on the need for clarity of exposition, alignment with funders expectations, provable excellence in the proposal, and transparency in the matching of the proposal to the funders assessment criteria. These qualities will be measured against participant's original ideas and developed into an introduction to the funding proposal. 

Session 2 – Quality Scientific Writing: Wednesday 23 May 2018, 2–4.30pm
This session will have a particular focus on the scientific quality of the proposal. We will apply the ideas of the first session to the detailed science of the proposal and to the construction of work packages etc. 

Session 3 – Funders Expectations: Wednesday 20 June 2018, 2–4.30pm 
This session will focus on funders expectations of a proposal and how best to present information which to meet these expectations. We will cover issues such as impact, national importance, training, track records, resources, team building etc. 

There will be no arranged sessions over the summer break. Departmental support will continue to be used and additional support can be arranged where necessary. This time is to be used to complete proposals to draft status and these will be collected prior to the fourth session. 

Session 4 – Finalising Proposals: Wednesday 12 September 2018, 2-4.30pm
The fourth session will focus on the assessment process to allow participants to see into the minds of reviewers and thereby further enhance their writing skills. The importance and general principles of replying to referee’s reports will be discussed. Finally, feedback will be given on participant’s proposals and areas for improvement will be highlighted. 

Session 5 – Mock Panel: Wednesday 10 October 2018, 2-4.30pm 
The Grant Challenge will culminate in a mock panel where proposals will be evaluated and decisions made as to whether grants are fundable and, if not, why not. Understanding how funding decisions are made will feed into improved grant writing.



Delivered By: Prof Yvonne Perrie

Prerequisites

Prior to session 1, participants are required to have a departmental mentor in place who will provide on-going, subject specific feedback as the grant develops. Once you have registered for the challenge OSDU will contact your department to recommend a mentor and this will be confirmed via email prior to session 1.

You should also do the following: