Hacking Academia

Applying for Small Research Grants: Tips, Tricks and Key Differences to Larger Grants


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Getting started on applying for and winning grant funding πŸ’° can be overwhelming, especially for early career researchers like postdocs in academia.

One of the typical ways researchers get into the funding ecosystem is through small grant programs, both internal to their organisation and through external funding bodies.

In this video I cover key concepts and plenty of advice for how to effectively apply for small grants, with lots of context on what the organisations funding these grant schemes are typically looking for.

πŸ™ Please reshare if of interest to you, your colleagues, friends and/or family!

Complete topic list and timestamps:

πŸ“Œ (0:00) Specific Advice for Small Grant Applications
πŸ“Œ (0:20) Two Main Types: Internal and External
πŸ“Œ (0:40) Small Grants are Often Gateways to Bigger Things
πŸ“Œ (1:07) Training and Development Opportunities
πŸ“Œ (1:41) Gateway to Bigger Internal Opportunities Too
πŸ“Œ (1:57) External: Both Pilot Schemes and Self-Contained
πŸ“Œ (2:18) Application Effort Should Scale to Grant Size
πŸ“Œ (2:44) Application Structure Can Replicate Larger Grants
πŸ“Œ (3:10) Budget Planning Also Required
πŸ“Œ (3:23) Support from Supervisor and Career Alignment
πŸ“Œ (3:47) Written Support from Collaborators / Partners
πŸ“Œ (4:01) The β€œWhy Hasn’t It Been Solved Already?” Question
πŸ“Œ (4:26) Good Answer: New Tools, Techniques, Equipment
πŸ“Œ (4:44) Good Answer: A New Growing Problem
πŸ“Œ (4:59) Good Answer: Unique Positioning
πŸ“Œ (5:14) Good Answer: Unique Research Environment
πŸ“Œ (5:30) Bad Answer: No-one Else Will Fund the Research
πŸ“Œ (6:20) Specific and Narrow Scope
πŸ“Œ (6:54) Specific Example: Establishing a New Dataset
πŸ“Œ (7:17) Specific Example: Drone Navigation Research
πŸ“Œ (7:47) Set Against Your Exciting, Grand Vision
πŸ“Œ (8:11) Imagine Writing Your Subsequent Grant
πŸ“Œ (8:52) Specific Outcomes
πŸ“Œ (9:16) What Measures and Indicates Success?
πŸ“Œ (9:31) Feasibility on Top of Existing Workload
πŸ“Œ (9:59) Promising Preliminary Work
πŸ“Œ (10:13) Aligned With or Distanced From Current Research?
πŸ“Œ (10:32) IP, Duplicate Funding, Conflict of Interest
πŸ“Œ (11:01) Leveraging Existing Resources and Experience
πŸ“Œ (11:36) Small Grants Can’t Pivot Much
πŸ“Œ (12:04) Opportunity for Substantial Interactive Feedback
πŸ“Œ (12:36) Small Grants Will Always Be a Part of Your Career
πŸ“Œ (13:15) Some of Your Best Work Will Be From Small Grants

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Hacking AcademiaBy Michael