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What a $500k grant proposal looks like

austinhenley.com

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Re: What a $500k grant proposal looks like

#91

Post by dhash »

supernova87a wrote: post #29

You know, the thing I always found extremely frustrating or non-transparent about the academic grant process (and it leaks over into government / NSF / etc applications by the nature of who evaluates those: academics again) is how much unofficial or unspoken criteria come into it. You get extra credit points if you're active in visiting other universities and giving talks on the annual job circuit. You tend to do wel…

Academia, just like venture capital is made up of people

I used to think that academia was up to merit, during my teaching days

The only and I mean only reason I ever got a grant is because I called the asshole and asked him to craft it

for me

Re: What a $500k grant proposal looks like

#92

Post by OMGWTF »

dwohnitmok wrote: post #70
bena wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That means your overhead rate would be around 65%.

No it does mean the overhead is 280% if defined the same way as the university (overhead is calculated as percentage of non-overhead costs, not overall costs). But I'm not sure whether the company would count just an employee's salary as non-overhead costs. I'm fuzzy on the details of how overhead is usually calculated.

> No it does mean the overhead is 280% if defined the same way as the university (overhead is calculated as percentage of non-overhead costs, not overall costs).

But he said:

> That is my billing rate to the government is 2.8 times my hourly rate as determined by my salary.

Doesn't that mean that the government pays a total of 2.8x his salary, so overhead would be 180% (+100% salary = 280% total)? Or what mistake did I make here?

Re: What a $500k grant proposal looks like

#93

Post by Fomite »

derbOac wrote: post #61
supernova87a wrote: post #29

You know, the thing I always found extremely frustrating or non-transparent about the academic grant process (and it leaks over into government / NSF / etc applications by the nature of who evaluates those: academics again) is how much unofficial or unspoken criteria come into it. You get extra credit points if you're active in visiting other universities and giving talks on the annual job circuit. You tend to do wel…

I went to a grant writing workshop sponsored by the university. When I got there the entire thing, and I mean entire thing, was about buttering up the grant review officers, how to network with people at the agencies, how to work your way into being their friends, and so forth. Not a single thing about the writing process, or how to frame your ideas, or anything like that. I know that's not how grants are always awar…

In contrast, ours focused almost entirely on polishing and refining our specific aims page. Eight weeks on what was effectively perhaps two pages of writing. Draft after draft, peer review, etc.

Landed said grant on first submission.

Re: What a $500k grant proposal looks like

#94

Post by Fomite »

supernova87a wrote: post #29

You know, the thing I always found extremely frustrating or non-transparent about the academic grant process (and it leaks over into government / NSF / etc applications by the nature of who evaluates those: academics again) is how much unofficial or unspoken criteria come into it. You get extra credit points if you're active in visiting other universities and giving talks on the annual job circuit. You tend to do wel…

Having been both a grant writer and a reviewer for NIH and NIH-alike grants, there's an element of both.

Established groups definitely get a bit of a pass with "Well, surely Professor So-and-So will sort this out" that an early career person won't. And environment does come into play in terms of whether or not a university has the ability to manage a grant, and yes, large universities basically get an auto-pass there, but it's something people talk about.

But I will say that even for established people at large universities, you do have to stick the content. A ton of recent cycles have been dominated by "Hey, we do COVID research now!" from groups that never did infectious disease research before, and a lot of those got clobbered in review.

But I also do my best to teach my students about the "soft factors" of academia - there are a lot, and they are, by and large, hidden.

Your last point isn't lost either - I occasionally get a little bitter when I translate funding rounds on Hacker News into grant-equivalents.

Re: What a $500k grant proposal looks like

#95

Post by [deleted] »

ta988 wrote: post #34
lazyjeff wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually the math doesn't work quite like that, but it's a common misconception. 53% indirect costs (overhead) is multiplied on the direct costs rather than the total amount, so it is actually 500K-500K/(1+0.53) = 173K taken by the university assuming the full amount can be charged indirect. In practice, some charges like tuition and equipment do not have indirects, so the actual amount taken by the university would…

And most of the time (if not always with NIH) when researchers say they got a $x grant, x is the direct cost so what they get directly. then you can often negotiate things back from your university such as time on shared equipments, students...

[deleted]

Re: What a $500k grant proposal looks like

#96

Post by prash_ant »

Fomite wrote: post #93
derbOac wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to a grant writing workshop sponsored by the university. When I got there the entire thing, and I mean entire thing, was about buttering up the grant review officers, how to network with people at the agencies, how to work your way into being their friends, and so forth. Not a single thing about the writing process, or how to frame your ideas, or anything like that. I know that's not how grants are always awar…

In contrast, ours focused almost entirely on polishing and refining our specific aims page. Eight weeks on what was effectively perhaps two pages of writing. Draft after draft, peer review, etc. Landed said grant on first submission.

This is impressive. Did others in the workshop have same experience as you of getting grant on first submission too? If so, the workshop can get credit, else you deserve the credit.

Re: What a $500k grant proposal looks like

#97

Post by pinot »

supernova87a wrote: post #29

You know, the thing I always found extremely frustrating or non-transparent about the academic grant process (and it leaks over into government / NSF / etc applications by the nature of who evaluates those: academics again) is how much unofficial or unspoken criteria come into it. You get extra credit points if you're active in visiting other universities and giving talks on the annual job circuit. You tend to do wel…

> You get extra credit points if you're active in visiting other universities and giving talks on the annual job circuit. You tend to do well if you advisors are well-connected. You have to sprinkle a bit of fad-ish topics into your research if even if it's a stretch to do so.

Sounds a bit like any job:

* Cross train in other departments

* Demonstrate your functionality/team’s functionality to other groups through talks, white papers, ‘internal consulting

* You do well when your boss does well, make your boss look good

* Buzzwords and trends make the world go round

Re: What a $500k grant proposal looks like

#98

Post by Fomite »

glofish wrote: post #5

also noteworthy elements: university overhead 53%, so that leaves $250K. Over five years that works out to basically $50K/year That needs to cover 1 month summer salary plus the salary and the tuition for a single student, and the travel to conferences, and the experiment ... and that is a "prestigious" CAREER award only few people get ... no wonder the author jumped ship

A couple notes:

- As mentioned by several people, your math is a little off, and indirects are not a flat tax, there's a calculation for what is eligible for being charged indirect costs and at what rate.

- The CAREER award is prestigious because it is a signaling mechanism - it's directly funding a particular PI more than it is a project. It's...sort of like being picked for a YC round in that respect.

- NSF funding is designed, philosophically, around smaller awards by and large, compared to say the NIH. The average "Oh, this'll make sure you get tenure" award for NIH-funded fields is an R01, which has a direct budget of about $1.25 million.

Re: What a $500k grant proposal looks like

#99

Post by Fomite »

gumby wrote: post #37
glofish wrote: post #5

also noteworthy elements: university overhead 53%, so that leaves $250K. Over five years that works out to basically $50K/year That needs to cover 1 month summer salary plus the salary and the tuition for a single student, and the travel to conferences, and the experiment ... and that is a "prestigious" CAREER award only few people get ... no wonder the author jumped ship

53% is pretty good! I believe Stanford and MIT have O/H over 100%

MIT is 55% Stanford is 58%

The only place I've ever encountered with an overhead rate above 100% was Scripps, and that's because they have to maintain research vessels.

Re: What a $500k grant proposal looks like

#100

Post by Fomite »

thrownawayalre wrote: post #55
lumost wrote: post #46

I'd be curious what the impact of fewer but more voluminous grants would be on academia. As other commenters have noted this grant turns into roughly 1 student for 5 years working on the project for a professor. Even for this grant, you would expect that a professor would need 3-5 such ongoing grants to really keep the lab functional. It took 2 weeks to craft this grant proposal. Assuming the average academic has a 3…

In many fields, students do not need extra grants for funding. Startup funds, teaching assistantship (TA) and other sources fund PhD students. You can advise 3-5 students who TA at the same time, without writing grants. Some fields on the other hand need more external grants to fund students. It really is field-dependent.

This.

A mentor of mine is able to fund most of her students, save for maybe their final year, on TA-shps.

I'm in a purely research department - if I don't have funding for the full time, I don't have students.

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