Jacob Fies
Interview with Professor Sean Colin
Conducted on February 26, 2018
Questioned By: Jacob Fies
Q: How many grant proposals would you guess that you’ve written during your career?
A: 29
Q: Do you follow the same style/organization for every proposal or do different organizations require different formats of proposals?
A: A pretty generic set up that gives a background that leads into the methods/goals/ and hypothesis. There are still a lot of required sections such as timeline and focus of each sections or group.
Q: Do you often propose the same project to multiple boards, or are the projects specifically tailored to the board you are proposing to?
A: People do it, but its not too ethical to get redundant funding without the other sources knowing. Success rate is about 10% so its uncommon to write to multiple boards that could look down on “double dipping”. Could reorganize to what specific organizations are looking for, called “boiler plates”
Q: Have you ever written a proposal for an entirely un-researched idea? And if so how does this compare to writing one concerning previously researched topics that have a lot of backup behind the ideas?
A: Writing would be the same for both, emphasizing the need for the study (can become harder with concecutive research proposals on the same subject), and demonstrating that the work is feesible (This can change based on previous research), and that you are the best person to do it.
A: 29
Q: Do you follow the same style/organization for every proposal or do different organizations require different formats of proposals?
A: A pretty generic set up that gives a background that leads into the methods/goals/ and hypothesis. There are still a lot of required sections such as timeline and focus of each sections or group.
Q: Do you often propose the same project to multiple boards, or are the projects specifically tailored to the board you are proposing to?
A: People do it, but its not too ethical to get redundant funding without the other sources knowing. Success rate is about 10% so its uncommon to write to multiple boards that could look down on “double dipping”. Could reorganize to what specific organizations are looking for, called “boiler plates”
Q: Have you ever written a proposal for an entirely un-researched idea? And if so how does this compare to writing one concerning previously researched topics that have a lot of backup behind the ideas?
A: Writing would be the same for both, emphasizing the need for the study (can become harder with concecutive research proposals on the same subject), and demonstrating that the work is feesible (This can change based on previous research), and that you are the best person to do it.