The Grant

It is time to have a talk about proposal writing during the summer. Nobody ever really talks about this. But we need to, because it is a rough task that is made much more complicated by different holiday calendars, disrupted work flows and general ignorance vis-à-vis the complex challenges that the proposal writers face. The consequences are more than just a lost trip to the beach – anxiety, heavy stress, solitude, neglect of spouses and kids, bottomless despair and burn-outs are the reality for many individuals during and after submission of proposals in August and September.

This is the second part of The Grant summer special episode on proposal writing during the summer. I have invited NGO-representative Ivana Todorovic and independent grant consultant Georg Melzer-Venturi into the virtual podcast studio for a panel discussion about this important subject.

We discuss the consequences of summer proposal preparation on especially the mental health and family relations and we discuss how private consultancy business models and university framework conditions don’t help at all with these problems. Finally, we give some advice and solutions on how to handle this as a proposal writer.

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It is time to have a talk about proposal writing during the summer. Nobody ever really talks about this. But we need to, because it is a rough task that is made much more complicated by different holiday calendars, disrupted work flows and general ignorance vis-à-vis the complex challenges that the proposal writers face. The consequences are more than just a lost trip to the beach – anxiety, heavy stress, solitude, bottomless despair and burn-outs are the reality for many individuals during and after submission of proposals in August and September.

I have invited NGO-representative Ivana Todorovic and independent grant consultant Georg Melzer-Venturi into the virtual podcast studio for a panel discussion about this important subject. 

In this first half of the long talk we had, we discuss the annual call circle and the Commissions responsibility for settling the deadlines. Second, we cover how very different the proposal preparation process is during summer compared to the rest of the year. This is a must-hear for all proposal writers, but especially for the less experienced. 

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In this episode I dig into the coordinator issue - to be a coordinator and to find a coordinator. I run through who is normally coordinating Horizon Europe proposals. Then I elaborate on the key elements on being a coordinator including the key responsabilities. If you dont have a coordinator I then share with you the approach related to choosing a coordinator among the consortium partners and finally, if no one wants to pick it up, I give tips and advices on how to identify and find a coordinator. This is a subject that I will get back to in future episodes in interviews with guests that have more experience from coordinating proposals and projects. 

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In this seventh episode of The Timeline Series I move into the area of completing the comsortium. When the partners agree to join you need to formally get them onboard. Now is also the time where you need to get your practical organisation in place if you haven't already set up your systems. I share how I deal with my organisation when I coordinate these processes. Further, I share how you get from draft consortium to final consortium including all the difficulties you will most likely run into getting the final confirmations. In the end of this episode I will cover the consortium meetings you need to have where content and practical discussions will be carried out. I share the typical agenda points that I have when preparing my power point slides. The episode is filled with practical advice on how to deal with this part of the process.

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This is the first Advisory Board episode. In the Advisory Board concept I will have a core group of experts that on a regular basis drops by the virtual podcast studio to exchange, discuss and enlighten me and the listeners on issues within grants application. 

In this episode I have the first The Grant Advisory Board member Kristjan Zemljic onboard. Kristjan has the independent consultancy company Global Disruption together with his partner. Kristjan has been working with EU R&D grants application for more than 10 years in different connections, but now primarily works with high-tech SME's and incubator organisations. 

We have a nice in-depth talk about how to develop your idea into and full project concept. We depart from The Grant timeline episode on the topic and dig into the details on which tools we use, how we prefer to approach the content discussions with teams and clients and how to arrive at the strong concept in the end. The episode contains lots of advise and reflections on this crucial part of the proposal preparation.

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Time codes:

15:35: Overall – how to prepare yourself and attacking the process to make a good concept

34:30: How to use Power Point, Google Drive etc as idea development canvas tools shaping the technical project structure

53:00: Work package structure – IPR, Communication/Dissemination/Exploitation, Project management, Life Cycle Assessment etc

57:30 : Concept tool in steps to work with the core partner

1:02:30: Call requirements check up vs. the project concept

1:06:45: The toughest challenge

In this sixth episode on The Timeline Series I move on to the partner value chain definition and the partner search activities. I run through how to define your partner value chain for your proposal and move on to giving tips for your partner search strategy. Second half of the episode is dedicated to more practical elements on how you reach out to possible partners and how you deal with follow-up meetings and onboarding to the consortium. The episode has lots of tips and good advice on how to structure your outreach and not least how to identify and approach partners outside your network. This episode leads up to the next episode where I will go into deteails on settling the consortium.

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In this fifth episode of The Timeline Series I give some tips and advice on how to make a strong concept note for your project concept. The concept note is needed to recruit partners to your proposal, but it also serves as the first short coherent written outline of your project concept. I run through the function of the concept note, I give advice on how to structure the document and share some thoughts on what to be aware of. Finally, I give my view on what are the toughest challenges with this part of the proposal preparation process. 

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In this fourth episode of The Timeline Series I am digging into the process of developing the basic idea into a full Horizon Europe proposal concept. I will run through overall elements to be aware of to make a good project concept. Second, I will give some advice on how you need to get a team involved before you start this part of the process. In the third - and main - part of the episode I will give some input and tips on how to attack the idea development process and explain how I normally deal with this.  In the last part of the episode I will share ideas on workshops approaches and how to settle a work package structure for the project concept

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In this third episode of The Timeline Series of the The Grant podcast I will be digging into how to read and analyze the Horizon Europe work programme call texts. When you have identified the specific call, you are faced with a strategic R&D call text where a little bit a guidance is beneficial for the interpretation and analysis before you continue developing the overall project concept. 

The episode is divided into three sections: call text structure, analysing the call text and key elements to be aware of. I run through how the texts are structured and the logic behind. Further, through concrete text examples I explain how to approach the analysis of the call text and how to interpret it. Finally, I carve out which things to pay extra attention to.   

The episode is full of guidance, tips, tricks, some background knowledge + where to go for more help that will all help you digest the call text to make sure that you get it right. 

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The is the second episode of The Timeline Series of the The Grant podcast. In this episode I outline ways to identify the concrete funding calls that you will need to match your R&D project ideas.  I will explain the structure of the Horizon Europe Framework Programme and the work programme documents are build up. Secoind, the episode contains information on how to find and identify the concrete call in the work programmes. The episode contains tips and tricks on how to easiest find possible funding calls relevant for you and which support structures that are available to help you further. 

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