“How Do I Get My Proposal Funded?” A Guide to Writing Effective Proposals

Introduction

Writing a proposal for funding may seem like a daunting task. While competition is often stiff for what seems like not enough funding, we believe that the process of preparing a proposal will be of great value to you and to the community. Below, we lay out the steps involved: whether or not to apply, getting started with due diligence, choosing an appropriate opportunity and reading the solicitation carefully, reading the solicitation (again) while preparing your proposal, and proofreading. While we have each served as an NSF program officer,⁠¹ our goal is to provide a guide to applying for a variety of opportunities.

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This article reflects our views, not those of the NSF.

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1. Should You Apply?

If you have never applied for funding through your institution, talk to your department head or others who have been successful obtaining funding. There may be internal incentives for writing proposals to outside funders or reasons to apply for internal funding. Look at funding opportunities to decide which grants are the best match for you. You need to come up with new ideas and write a persuasive proposal that addresses everything the funder requests. Two of the biggest funders of basic research in mathematics and the physical sciences in the US are the National Science Foundation and the Simons Foundation, but there are several other agencies, private as well as government, that fund research. Once you know which to apply for, there may be specific requirements. The proposal may be restricted to a few pages, you may need to create a budget or you may need letters of support. That’s asking a lot, and, to top it all off, you may not get it. But there are many reasons for applying—the first is that your proposal might be funded. You will have money to support students, to attend conferences, and to support collaborations. If you don’t get it, you have demonstrated your diligence, you still have your great idea for a problem, a plan of attack, and you may receive useful feedback.

2. Getting Started

Start early. Even if you have an idea and a strong track record, it takes time to write a compelling proposal. You have to establish your expertise, demonstrate your passion and motivate your problem with clarity. You need to be sure that your references are complete and the proposal is error free. Allow yourself enough time to find an appropriate funding opportunity and to write a great proposal.

2.1. The Office of Sponsored Research

Once you have decided to seek support, visit your Office of Sponsored Research (OSR). They will be critically involved in the submission of your proposal. If your school has no OSR, talk to others on your campus and see what they suggest.

The people in this office can do a lot for you.⁠² They can tell you about funding opportunities, work with you on your budget, help you fill out the institutional information, and help you submit the proposal. If you have trouble staying on track, they can develop a schedule with you. They can find people to parse the solicitation and read proposal drafts. They may also supervise group writing sessions. If this is offered, take advantage of it—it will keep you on track and other people in the sessions may have interesting ideas for writing. If you get the award, there is a lot more that an OSR can do on the finance end.

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For example, they helped us write this article!

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Your OSR (or equivalent) will also have knowledge of a wide range of possible grants that you can apply for, from some of the usual suspects to places you may not have considered like the Department of Energy Visiting Faculty Program or one of the MAA Grants.⁠³ The NSF has many opportunities.⁠⁴ The Mathematical Science Institutes have many possibilities, too. The NSF also has curricular or educational initiatives, like the NSF REU or NSF DUE curricular grant opportunities. If these seem like a better fit, the Center for Undergraduate Research in Mathematics (CURM, also funded by the NSF but on hiatus in 2022) has minigrants and workshops. The CURM website offers this useful reason for applying: “Last year you applied for a grant related to promoting undergraduate research and [were] denied because the reviewers felt that you did not have enough experience. A CURM mini-grant would help you gain more experience and make a stronger proposal…” But more on that later.

³

https://www.maa.org/programs-and-communities/outreach-initatives

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⁴

https://beta.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities?sort_bef_combine=nsf_funding_upcoming_due_dates_DESC&f[0]=division:43

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3. Choosing Your Match

Think about your strengths and see if the program is a good match for you. Let’s consider two NSF opportunities for early-career faculty: Launching Early-Career Academic Pathways in the Mathematical Sciences (LEAPS) and Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER). To figure out if one of these is right for you, read the solicitation. LEAPS “has an emphasis to help launch the careers of pre-tenure faculty in Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) fields at institutions that do not traditionally receive significant amounts of NSF-MPS funding, such as some minority-serving institutions (MSIs), predominantly undergraduate institutions (PUIs), and Carnegie Research 2 (R2) universities.” CAREER supports those who “have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.” But perhaps a straightforward research proposal with broader impacts is better for you than integrating a detailed educational plan. If the opportunity sounds good, see if there is a webinar you can attend. If it still sounds like a possibility, it’s time to get started.

3.1. Read the solicitation

Seriously. Read it. The solicitation⁠⁵ tells you whether this opportunity is right for you, what you need to do, and it also offers guidance for the reviewers, telling them how to evaluate the proposals. For example, the CAREER program explicitly notes that “all CAREER proposals should describe an integrated path that will lead to a successful career as an outstanding researcher and educator.” Do you have a strong track record in research and education? Do you have new ideas for the education of students? Are you as passionate about that as you are about research? If not, perhaps there’s a better match. The AMS-Simons Travel Grants, for example, are also for early-career faculty, specifically individuals who have earned a PhD within four years of the grant start date and have a mentor, and they provide support for a total of $6000 over a two-year period for travel.

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There are unsolicited proposals too, but they have their own set of requirements that you must adhere to.

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Once you have your match(es), find out as much as possible about your funder and your audience. Talk to people who have served on panels; they have valuable experience, even if it isn’t in your discipline. Some things are universal, and they can tell you what those are. Ask people who have been successful to share their experience or proposals (your OSR may be helpful, too; they may even have a list of successful proposals). Likely, all the proposals you see will have the following commonalities: a strong track record, persuasive motivation for new problems, a demonstrated passion for the work, well-developed ideas for successful solutions, and potential for strong impact.

4. How to Write Your Proposal

Writing is hard work, especially writing that you want others to appreciate. A proposal, at its core, is an invitation to the reader to follow you on a journey; you want to convince them it is a worthwhile trip for everyone. It’s possible that your work, both past and proposed future, may be so exceptional that reviewers are willing to overlook some lack of clarity. Or, your writing may be beautiful but your proposed projects seem not as exciting for the future of science. Reviewers may allow some margin for either happenstance, but this is not something you will want to count on. So how do you write a good proposal?

4.1. Getting started writing

There is undoubtedly more than one way to do this, but if you do not have a lot of experience you may benefit from writing by hand a short draft of a selection of research problems that you plan to investigate. These could be continuations of your current work, a project you put on the back burner, or a completely new problem or research direction. It is a good rule of thumb to have about three projects—it’s rare that one project will be successful, and describing too many projects will not allow the space to fully develop them. Divide your proposal into sections and write down provisional titles for these sections. For example, a typical NSF proposal could have four sections: background, prior work, proposed projects (intellectual merit), broader impact activities. But, one may equally well divide sections as: introduction, project 1 (background + prior work + future project), project 2, project 3, broader impacts. This is not meant to be prescriptive; it’s just a reminder that you should have a plan and a good story.

4.2. Organization

Describing the actual projects is the heart of the proposal. Reviewers are committed to reading your proposal thoroughly, but everyone’s time is at a premium and your proposal is one of many that they may be evaluating. Your organization and attention to details (Are there uncompiled references? Is the proposal riddled with typos? Are sentences vague? Are there missing references? Is there a page limit?) all go a long way to convince a reviewer that your project is worthwhile and you are the right person to do it. Using sections and subsections can guide the reviewer and indicate that you have done everything that you were asked to do.

4.3. Track record, depth, and strategy

The actual content of your proposed projects is, obviously, the most important thing in your proposal. Think of this as a line being drawn from what you have done in the area of the project (your track record), through the depth and importance of your proposed problem, to your proposed innovation or strategy to tackle this problem. Giving short shrift to depth or strategy risks a lower rating by the reviewer.

Depth. This is often difficult to get right and you should spend time revising to achieve the right balance. If you, for example, suggest that you plan to make progress on the Riemann Hypothesis with little to no track record, then your proposal will be viewed, as expected, with great skepticism. On the other hand, if you suggest a small improvement on a moderately impactful result in your area, then this may be viewed as not far-reaching (remember, competition is stiff). Look for that “sweet spot.”

Strategy. Aiming for an ambitious, but possibly attainable, result must be backed up with a plausible strategy. Too often, researchers are cagey about how they expect to solve a problem. We understand why someone might be reluctant to share details. But, your colleagues are less likely to recommend an award without cogent evidence of a viable path forward. Reviewers need something convincing and correct, but not necessarily complete. However, be wary that this is the most likely place for you to introduce an error and you may not have all the details down. Try to find a balance between too little and too much.

4.4. Broader impacts

Everything that we have said also applies to what are known as “broader impacts” in NSF parlance, namely, projects that have an impact on people. If you are proposing an activity that benefits students or the community, then reviewers will want to see a track record. They want to see depth and importance. If you can, say who will be impacted and how. Use your proposal to convince reviewers that you mean what you say: If you say that you will mentor students and take them to conferences, have you discussed funding for their travel? Have you suggested appropriate venues for presentations? Specifics are always more convincing than generalities.

5. Encouraging Good Practices

Citations

We begin with advice that is good for all writing, but especially scientific writing: If you cite references selectively, whether by accident or by design, your proposal may be viewed poorly. If you were the first to discover something, say so. But if you gave a new proof of an old result, put that into context. Scrupulously cite all relevant work and be honest about where your work fits in the big picture.

Proposal, not person

Focus on the proposal and not on any aspect of personality. For example, you may believe that you are the only person capable of solving a given problem. But simply stating that you can solve a problem because you have solved a problem like this before is not convincing. Instead, demonstrate your expertise by describing your innovative approach or strategy. Keep the focus on your proposal and don’t issue value judgments about other researchers or their work.

Words matter

Words are powerful as we all know. But a proposal is different from an equation or theorem. If you claim that your work has broader impacts simply because one of your collaborators is a (senior) mathematician from an under-represented group, this will get noticed and it will be discussed. But probably not in the way you were hoping; reviewers can spot tokenism or efforts to marginalize important aspects of proposal review. Have an experienced reviewer look at your proposal before submission to make sure that this doesn’t happen to you.

6. Reviews and Declinations

Whether your proposal is recommended for funding or not it is good practice to read the reviews carefully. Look for common themes in reviews and summaries: is more than one person saying that your program sounds unrealistic? or are they saying that the work could be more ambitious? Take that as good advice delivered candidly. If you can, discuss your reviews with experienced reviewers. What we encourage you not to do is to read reviews word by word, sentence by sentence to convince yourself that a particular reviewer derailed your proposal. That is unlikely to be true and will distract from improving your proposal.

While there is no guarantee in a very competitive funding landscape, we encourage you to keep trying. Sometimes reviewers identify weak points in the proposal, but sometimes funders have to decline worthy proposals. And very few proposals receive only stellar reviews. Strengthen your track record, present at conferences, talk to established colleagues, review and referee papers, and volunteer to serve on panels (https://www.nsf.gov/bfa/dias/policy/merit_review/reviewer.jsp). Each of the authors of this article has been funded fewer times than we have applied. For us, the process ensures that the community is aware of our efforts, it helps us maintain focus on our research program, and sometimes we receive valuable feedback.

The benefits of applying include—but are not limited to—the possibility that your proposal will be funded. As the saying goes, “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”

Pamela Gorkin is a professor of mathematics at Bucknell University. Her email address is pgorkin@bucknell.edu.

Krishnan Shankar is a professor and department head of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at James Madison University. His email address is shankakx@jmu.edu.

Article DOI: 10.1090/noti2732

Credits

Photo of Pamela Gorkin is courtesy of Pamela Gorkin.

Photo of Krishnan Shankar is courtesy of Krishnan Shankar.