Having written NSF grants and other grants - DARPA etc. I have won some and lost many. I compiled a few non obvious takeaways:
- Story telling is everything. It seems this is a huge lesson never taught in grad school.
- Technical details sometimes work against you. The author is absolutely right that getting the general thought process across is crucial.
- Who you get on your review committee tends to significantly skew the outcome. Can make or break your chances.
- I have known a lot of groundbreaking work funded by other money for these exact reasons. Sometimes good science is too far afield for people to understand. An anecdote i like from recent times is how Eric Betzig built the super res microscope. Here's the background.
The sad truth is $500k for a career grant seems like a lot when you're in the university, but when you get out and see where else money is being spent you realize how poor academia really is.
- Story telling is everything. It seems this is a huge lesson never taught in grad school.
- Technical details sometimes work against you. The author is absolutely right that getting the general thought process across is crucial.
- Who you get on your review committee tends to significantly skew the outcome. Can make or break your chances.
- I have known a lot of groundbreaking work funded by other money for these exact reasons. Sometimes good science is too far afield for people to understand. An anecdote i like from recent times is how Eric Betzig built the super res microscope. Here's the background.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2015/04/quitting-failures-a-...
TLDR: he won the Nobel...
The sad truth is $500k for a career grant seems like a lot when you're in the university, but when you get out and see where else money is being spent you realize how poor academia really is.