5. Analyzing Funding Agencies
Knowledge about an agency often helps the applicant frame and sustain better agency-specific arguments throughout the proposal.
Analyzing, backgrounding, and understanding the mission, strategic plan, investment priorities, and culture of a funding agency often provides important information that will enhance the competitiveness of a proposal. Competitiveness depends, in part, on a series of well-informed decision points made throughout the writing of a proposal related to arguing the merit of the research and culminating in a well-integrated document that convinces the reviewers to recommend funding. Competitive advantage represents an accumulation of many small, marginal advantages gained at decision points throughout the project and proposal development and writing process. Knowledge about a funding agency helps the applicant make good decisions throughout the entire proposal development and writing process by better understanding the relationship of the research to the broader context of the funding agency’s mission, strategic plan, and research investment priorities. Knowledge about an agency often helps the applicant frame and sustain better agency-specific arguments throughout the proposal.
Many research programs funded by federal agencies or some private foundations grow out of an evolving consensus among the national research community of future directions in certain topic areas that in turn get translated into funding opportunities at the agencies, or incorporated into agency strategic plans. Often, educational programs, e.g., curriculum reform, come about from the same process. It is not uncommon, for example, for reports of the National Academies, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, or similar scientific associations to significantly influence funding directions at one or more agencies. Understanding the origins and underpinnings that help frame the rationale for new research funding opportunities is an important factor in competitive positioning.
Moreover, researching a funding agency on the internet allows the applicant to better understand its internal decision making process. In turn, improved understanding allows the applicant to make better internal decisions as the proposal is being developed and written.
Analysis of the funding agency helps the applicant better understand several key elements common to every competitive proposal:
- Who is the audience (e.g., agency, program officers, and reviewers) and what is the best way to address them?
- What is a fundable idea and how is it best characterized within the context of the agency research investment priorities?
- How are claims of research uniqueness and innovation best supported in the proposal text and reflective of agency strategic research plans?
- How does the applicant best communicate his or her passion, excitement, commitment, and capacity to perform the proposed research to review panels?
Analysis of funding agencies will help the applicant understand that agencies are not passive funders of research programs that are disconnected from a long-term research agenda. Research agencies see themselves as leaders in a national dialogue on research issues and directions, and as a key players in defining and driving the national research agenda. Moreover, funding agencies fund those projects that fall within the scope of their mission. This can be a source of frustration to some applicants, who may believe that a good idea alone will merit funding regardless of how connected it is to a particular agency’s investment priorities. However, agencies fund only very good ideas that are clearly developed and tightly linked to their mission, vision, and strategic plan.
A strong proposal allows the
funding agency to form a partnership with the submitting institution and
principal investigator that will help carry out the agency’s vision, mission,
and strategic goals. The applicant must understand the nature of this
partnership and the expectations of the funding agency, both during proposal
development and throughout a funded project. Much of this information can be
derived from analysis of background
information gathered on the funding agency related to a range of topics, likely
including the following:
- Mission
- Culture
- Strategic plan
- Investment priorities
- Language
- Management
- Organizational chart
- Program officers
- Reports, publications
- Leadership speeches
- Public testimony
- Review criteria
- Review process
- Review panels
- Project abstracts
- Funded projects
- Funded researchers
It is important to differentiate between and among various funding agencies by mission, strategic plan, investment priorities, culture, etc. For example, researchers in the social and behavioral sciences and the physical, computational, and biological sciences may have relevant research opportunities at two or more agencies, e.g., NIH, NSF, DOD, and EPA, but these agencies are very dissimilar in many ways, including the following:
- Research focus within disciplines
- Research that is basic, applied, or applications driven
- Research scope and performance time horizon
- Exploratory, open-ended research, or targeted to technology development
- Multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary
- Classified, non-classified
- Proprietary, non-proprietary
- Independent research, or dependent linkages to the agency mission, e.g., health care, education, economic development, defense
It is important for the applicant to differentiate between basic research agencies (e.g., NSF, NIH) and mission-focused agencies (e.g. DOD, NASA, USDA), as well as to differentiate between hypothesis-driven research and need- or applications driven research at the agencies. For example, agencies funding basic research would likely share the following characteristics:
- Independent agency and management
- Independent research vision, mission, and objectives
- Award criteria based on intellectual and scientific excellence
- Peer panel reviewed, ranked, and awarded by merit
- Focus on fundamental or basic research at the “frontiers of science,” innovation, and creation of new knowledge
- Open ended, exploratory, long investment horizon
- Non-classified, non-proprietary
Alternatively, an analysis of mission-oriented agencies (e.g., DOD, DOE, ED, USDA) would show characteristics related to research and development that will serve the agency’s immediate goals and objectives:
- Scope of work tightly defines research tasks/deliverables
- Predominately applied research for meeting near-term objectives, technology development and transfer, policy goals
- Predominately internal review by program officers
- Awards based on merit, but also on geographic distribution, political distribution, long term relationship with agency, Legislative, and Executive branch policies
- Classified and non-classified research
Analyze the Agency Mission
It is important that the applicant become knowledgeable about the mission and strategic research plan of the funding agency in order to more knowledgably embed the proposed research plan within the context of the funding agency. For example, while NSF and NIH both fund research in the biological sciences, they most often represent very different areas and topics. Sometimes the differences are clear, and in other cases more nuanced, but the distinctions are there, and the researcher needs to be aware of them.
In most cases, this information can be obtained on the internet by visiting the agency web site. Perusing the web site gives the applicant a sense of how the funding agency views itself and the role it sees itself playing in the national research enterprise. This information can be found in the agency mission statement or strategic plan, for example. In other cases, particularly with regard to private foundations, the applicant will find the annual report a source of useful information on mission and agenda. An annual report gives the applicant a profile of funded projects, award amounts, and results.
The proposal writer needs this information for several reasons, but principally because it will allow the writer to shape the proposal from its inception to conform to the agency’s mission. It helps the grant writer keep the proposal process on track by reminding participants that the grant ultimately must reflect the funding agency’s mission.
Analyze Agency Language and Usage
Learning to echo the language and usage of the funding agency is another factor that may enhance the overall competitiveness of a proposal. Funding agencies, like most institutions, often develop a unique phraseology to define and describe common, recurrent components of their mission and research agenda, e.g., “broader impacts” or “research and education integration” at NSF. Learning the language of the funding agency is important for writing the narrative section of a proposal, and helps in framing arguments more clearly and in better communicating them to program managers and reviewers.
Once the funding agency’s language is learned, it allows the appropriate translation to occur between the language of the funding agency and that of the applicant. It often helps the clarity of the narrative text to translate the applicant’s institutional language into that used by the agency program officers and reviewers. This is not an onerous or difficult task, but involves being alert to any preferred or repeated terms, usages, and meanings favored by the funding agency. Learned fluency in the use of funding agency language and usage is yet another factor that can enhance competitiveness.
