Going after Grants: The Benefits and Opportunity Costs By Bryan R. Early Associate Professor, Political Science Department Director, Center for Policy Research Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy University at Albany, SUNY 1

Grant-Funded Research Seeking out funding to support research and outreach activities Many different kinds of sponsors “Internal Awards” from within the University Government Agencies International Organizations Private Foundations Corporate Sponsors 2

What Grants Can Fund Grant funding can be used for a myriad of purposes Course Releases Summer Salary Students Travel Equipment / Software Consultants / Services Conferences / Workshops 3

Why Go After Grants Support Basic Research Surveys Resources for field work, archival work, and interviews Course releases Research assistants Access expensive resources and data Collect new data Get better equipment Travel funding for conferences and for workshops Publication support (Open Access / Editing / Indexing) 4

Why Go After Grants Supporting yourself, your students, and your department Grants can pay for summer salary, maxed at around 30% of base salary Grants can fund undergraduates Grants can fund graduate students Grant money helps to pay for departmental travel to conferences 5

Why Go After Grants Applied Projects and Outreach Grant-funded projects can involve you in the policymaking and policy implementation process Grants can support community outreach activities Grants can incentivize creating works for public consumption Grants can allow you to pay for your scholarship to be “open access” 6

Why Go After Grants Professional Rewards Appreciation and recognition within your department, college, or university Makes you a more attractive academic job candidate Makes you more attractive for other professional opportunities Gives you a new, broader skill set that can also be attractive for other professional opportunities 7

Grant-Writing as a Skill Grant-writing is a skill that can be improved with practice Grant-writing is a persuasive endeavor, balancing: Expertise Clarity Organization Showmanship 8

Grant Funding and the Sponsor’s Dilemma 9

Craft of Writing Grants Requires clear, concise writing Requires recasting your project to make it maximally attractive to sponsors’ goals Your credibility, reputation, and track- record are very important Must communicate the project to a more general audience and focus on substantive implications 10

Costs of Pursuing Grant-Funded Research Grants take time Finding Them Writing Them Implementing Them Reporting on Them Grants enhance the scope of your responsibility Grants force you to interact with multiple bureaucracies Grants force you to learn new things… administrative things Highly Competitive Grants Have Low Probabilities of Success 11

Strategies for Reducing Opportunity Costs Lower “search costs” for finding appropriate grant opportunities Dovetail grant-writing into pre-existing projects Re-use literature reviews Re-use grant application material for your book prospectus Pitch the same idea or project to multiple sponsors Revise your project ideas and re-submit them Collaborate on grant projects 12

Experience and Writing Grants You will likely have a lot of unsuccessful grant applications, especially early on The more grants you write, the faster you can write them The better you become at writing grants, the more likely your grants are to succeed The more you succeed in getting grants, the greater your probability of getting new ones 13

Conclusions about Grant Writing Grants are a great way to fund the scholarly activities you otherwise might find to costly or challenging to take on Grants are an increasingly important resource for universities Grants are an investment: By spending time on them, you hope to be awarded with time, money, and reputational benefits Grant-writing is a skill that can be invested in and improved 14