Workshop 'Grant proposal writing'

1.  Time & place

6th November, 2024 from 14:00 - 17:30: Session 1
7th November, 2024 from 14:00 - 17:30: Session 2
20th November, 2024 from 14:00 - 17:30: Session 3
21st November, 2024 from 14:00 - 17:30: Session 4

Webinar

Instructor: Dr. Sabine Preusse

2.  Description

Prepared by Sabine Preusse

Motivation and objectives

Successful grant proposal writing is a fundamental basis to fund a career in research. There are plenty of national and international funding programmes with different funding schemes. Each scheme has its individual context and thematic focus, eligibility and funding rules, submission and evaluation process, and evaluation criteria. Thus, the detailed features and aspects of a successful proposal in one funding scheme are naturally differing from those of a successful proposal in another funding scheme. However, the process of how to work out these details is a common denominator to the different funding schemes. It requires skills way beyond the ability to work out a research idea in detail.

Therefore, this workshop focuses on a) how to develop your idea for a project into a sound work programme, b) how to match it to the requirements of the funding programme and c) how to facilitate the communication with the reviewer by presenting your complex ideas in an easy-to-understand way.

To achieve this, we will try out the RaumZeit Toolkit for designing and communicating your research project convincingly by working on your own research project. This may be a new idea for a real grant proposal or your current research project.

Besides, you will obtain a lot of background information on different funding programmes, evaluation processes and potential pitfalls.

Workshop contents

SESSION 1: Funding programmes and how to read the documents (3.5 hours)

• The triangle of projects
• Overview on funding opportunities
• Background information on funding programmes and evaluation processes
• How to read the official documents
• The funding scheme fingerprint

SESSION 2: Develop your idea into a work plan (3.5 hours)

• Elements and structure of a work plan
• The Disney method
• Developing your idea for a research project into a first work plan
• Visualization of the work plan

SESSION 3: Communicate your project convincingly (3.5 hours)

• Matching your idea to the funding programme of choice
• Communication with the reviewer
• Objectives and how to get the details to make them SMART
• Innovative aspects

SESSION 4: Impact and Budget (3.5 hours)

• Where to put which information in the proposal and how to write about it convincingly?
• The eagle’s perspective on research projects
• Impact
• Budget calculation
• Coordination of the overall process

Transfer of workshop contents into real-life grant proposal writing

Participants can get individual feedback on their proposal with respect to the workshop contents once they have written the first draft any time after the workshop.

Methods and workshop language
This is an online workshop including presentations, group work and individual work. Some “homework” will be provided for those, who want to use the time between the sessions to work on their grant proposal. There will be the opportunity to obtain some feedback – either in the group or individually – on the homework.

The workshop will be held in English or German. However, slides and other documents are provided in English only.

Technical and other requirements for a successful participation
Workshops in a virtual room have their own technical challenges. Please make sure, that you have prepared

• an idea for a research project, for which you have not written a grant proposal yet. If you do not have one you can work on your current research project.
• a computer or laptop with keyboard, mouse (!) and one or two monitors (mobile phone is too small).
• a headset.

Documentation

Each participant will receive a detailed training manual in English covering all topics of the training. Furthermore, the workshop documentation will be sent to the participants within three weeks after the workshop.

Target group
This training is dedicated to researchers with no or little experience in grant proposal writing.

Results to take home

At the end of the workshop, the participants will have the following results:

• An overview on funding possibilities and helpful sources of information

• A list of contact points, websites and phone numbers, which provide support and detailed

  answers to questions

• A set of tools for efficiently developing research ideas into research projects and designing them to a funding program of interest

• Commented examples on proposal building blocks

• Concise building blocks for different parts of a proposal: work plan, Pert-diagram, objective, innovative aspects, impact.

Trainer
After obtaining her PhD in Astrophysics, Dr. Sabine Preusse, decided to quit academia in 2006 and move on to the project management of European Funded Research projects in the Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum. Besides writing grant proposals and being a project manager in the field of production technologies, she further trained herself as a business economist (IWW) and a professional business trainer. With this she founded her own company RaumZeit e.K. Coaching Training Beratung in 2011 and is now (also as a professional business coach) supporting researchers of all levels and disciplines in grant proposal writing, the implementation of research projects, dissemination and exploitation of project results, and Open Educational Resources.

Since 2011 Sabine Preusse has given more than 150 two-day workshops on grant proposal writing and more than 80 coachings with respect to grant proposal writing, design of research projects and career for young researchers, postdocs and professors.

Contact

For further details on the content of the course, the instructor can be contacted directly:

• Dr. Sabine Preusse, info@raum-zeit.de

For logistic matters (including registration issues), please contact the IMPRS-gBGC office (e-mail: imprs-gbgc@bgc-jena.mpg.de).

3.  Registration

Please register here.