How to Write Grants for Chemistry

The process of writing a chemistry grant begins with a well-written proposal indicating an applicant's desire for funding. This proposal is approved or rejected by a government agency, academic institution or business that is offering grant funds. An approved proposal allows chemists and researchers to write a grant outlining goals, methods and necessary funding. Every chemistry grant must fulfill several criteria before final approval by the funding institution.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Curriculum vita from each participant
• Lab supply catalogs

Obtain Grants for Chemistry Projects

1. Read the grant application materials carefully to ensure that your submission meets minimum requirements. Your research group may be eliminated from consideration if they forget to fill out contact information, institutional data and basic elements of the proposed study.

2. Formulate an accurate budget for your chemistry project that accounts for supplies, research assistant stipends and institutional resources. Your budget should be itemized for each step of the project to give the reader a clear idea of how each cent of grant money will be spent. Attach pages from university procurement officials, lab supply companies and other sources that back up your budget estimate.

3. Gather curriculum vita from professors, researchers and graduate students who are participating in the proposed chemistry project. These documents allow grant review boards to determine the skill level and reputation achieved by research teams before selecting a final recipient.

4. Apply the scientific method used in chemistry experiments and presentations when writing the majority of your grant. Every chemistry grant should feature an outline of the problem at hand, the applicant's hypothesis about the outcome and a detailed list of testing techniques. This section should be edited several times by fellow scientists and researchers to account for logical errors.

5. Write a detailed timeline for your chemistry project for inclusion with your grant application. The ideal timeline should offer week-by-week notes on administrative tasks, testing and reporting that gives the review board insights into a team's commitment to the project.

6. Promote the history, resources and reputation of your academic institution as an integral part of your chemistry grant. The review board may feel that a large university with an existing chemistry lab provides a great return on the initial investment. A small college or university with a strong chemistry department may be able to beat out larger schools for highly specialized grants.

7. Organize your chemistry grant with a table of contents, index and plenty of subheads to help reviewers track down specific information. Review boards look at the precision and organization of grant applications as one sign of an institution's professionalism.

Tips & Warnings

• Complete every part of your chemistry grant with the project's long-term impacts in mind. Most grant boards are deluged with hundreds of applications and have to find the application that can create the greatest impact on the scientific world.
• Start your grant writing and editing well ahead of the beginning of your project to account for long review periods. Grant providers may take several months to review proposals and send out funds to the grant recipient.
• Avoid rejection letters from grant providers by hiring an experienced grant writer for your project. This writer should have experience in writing, editing and compiling necessary paperwork for science grants to make his wages a worthwhile investment.

Resources

• Carolina Biological Supply Company
• Michigan State University Libraries chemistry grant listings

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