Yesterday I finished with my first grant application. Now most scientists I know yell and scream about how much of a pain writing a grant is. And while I do think the time sink is pretty severe, I found that it was really quite enjoyable to actually write the proposal. It’s not often that one gets to argue for your research in much the way that you can do in a grant application. In scientific articles you make arguments based on a logical progression and only in the intro do you get to motivate why what you are studying is important. It especially helps that I really [Correction: uh the word “like” should be here] the research I do. If I had to write a proposal about something I had only half my heart in, I can see myself not enjoying the process. Also I tend to view my work as a luxury item: being paid to work on theoretical science is like being given a big shiny yacht and allowed to cruise in the deep blue waters of ideas. Yeah, it’s a blessed life.
Of course, this is my first grant application. Talk to me in a few years and maybe I’ll be like all the other jaded researchers grubbing for money. But if I do, will someone please grab me by the nose and smack me back to my senses?
O brave new quantum world!
Ah, see we had the help of a very talented assistant. Without her I could see myself getting all lost and confused, but she made everything really smooth.
It’s not the writing per se that I complain about, it’s all the stupid little formatting issues. The process of writing up a sales pitch for my research was perfectly fine, but the bit where I had to make it comform to some arbitrary formatting standards was less fun. Not to mention the part where I had to come up with ten people who are experts in my field, but who I’ve never met.
It’s the same thing with paper writing. I enjoy writing research articles, but the process of cutting them down to size is torture.
This is your first one? For some reason I’d thought you’d have written lots of grants by now.
One major complaint I hear is that it’s never obvious how the desired research has to be framed in terms of cost. You may be interested in just getting funding for salary and grad student support for some sort of theoretical/thought experiment, but you’d have more success if you ask for more. That part does seem annoying since nobody knows how it really works. Instead of being judged just on the quality of the proposed science, you’re judged in part by the scope of the proposal as well.
“It especially helps that I really the research I do”
mmm I would say the same thing about what I do too 😉
(good luck with ur grant application.)
Doh! “Me failing English, that’s unpossible”