How to Write a Biology Grant Proposal

Grants are a great way to fund biology research.

Writing grant proposals is an important part of a researcher's work. Grant proposals outline the research to be done with a requested amount of funding. This is how biologists and other scientists gain funding from government and nongovernmental sources to research potential breakthroughs in their disciplines.

Instructions

1. Choose and write a hypothesis. This is where you explain the research to be funded. Reference all relevant studies and other research efforts.

2. Compose a background section. Outline what is known about the subject and what will be studied with the grant money. It is sometimes advantageous to speculate on what this research will mean to the organization receiving the grant proposal. If your study is about how deer populations feeding on riverside plants affect the flow of a river, and you are asking an environmental-engineering agency for money, explain that your study will provide information that will enable the agency to control the flow of the river with greater reliability.

3. Outline the experimental design you will use in testing the hypothesis. Here you will explain the investigation methods you will use. This should be broken into multiple subsections, each explaining the experiments to be conducted. This part will also help the writer of the grant proposal determine the materials needed. In a later section you will have to price your materials.

4. Write about the outcomes you expect. This is also an opportunity to again sell the meaning of the research to the group from whom you are requesting the grant.

5. Price your research. Include all materials, your salary, pay for others working on the project and any fees you may need to make, including lab upkeep costs. This can be tricky. You do not want to price too low, because unexpected costs can bankrupt you. You do not want to price too high, because the agency or group could go with a cheaper project.

6. Cite all literature used at the end of the proposal.

References

• University of Wisconsin: La Crosse: Communication in the Biological Sciences: Writing a Grant Proposal
• University of Maryland: How to Write a Grant Proposal
• UN Library: Writing Grant Proposals