Applying for Small Research Grants: Tips, Tricks and Key Differences to Larger Grants

Getting started on ✍️ applying for and 🎉 winning grant funding 💰 can be overwhelming. Especially for early career researchers like postdocs in academia!

One of the typical ways researchers get into the funding ecosystem is through small grant programs, both internal to their organisation and through external funding bodies. While there are many common principles for grant funding applications, there are particular issues for small grants that you should pay extra attention to.

In this video I cover key concepts and plenty of advice for how to effectively apply for small grants. In particular, I give lots of context on what the organisations funding these grant schemes are typically looking for and considering in the evaluation process.

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Complete topic list and timestamps:

(0:00) Specific Advice for Small Grant Applications
(0:20) Two Main Types: Internal and External
(0:40) Small Grants are Often Gateways to Bigger Things
(1:07) Training and Development Opportunities
(1:41) Gateway to Bigger Internal Opportunities Too
(1:57) External: Both Pilot Schemes and Self-Contained
(2:18) Application Effort Should Scale to Grant Size
(2:44) Application Structure Can Replicate Larger Grants
(3:10) Budget Planning Also Required
(3:23) Support from Supervisor and Career Alignment
(3:47) Written Support from Collaborators / Partners
(4:01) The "Why Hasn't It Been Solved Already?" Question
(4:26) Good Answer: New Tools, Techniques, Equipment
(4:44) Good Answer: A New Growing Problem
(4:59) Good Answer: Unique Positioning
(5:14) Good Answer: Unique Research Environment
(5:30) Bad Answer: No-one Else Will Fund the Research
(6:20) Specific and Narrow Scope
(6:54) Specific Example: Establishing a New Dataset
(7:17) Specific Example: Drone Navigation Research
(7:47) Set Against Your Exciting, Grand Vision
(8:11) Imagine Writing Your Subsequent Grant
(8:52) Specific Outcomes
(9:16) What Measures and Indicates Success?
(9:31) Feasibility on Top of Existing Workload
(9:59) Promising Preliminary Work
(10:13) Aligned With or Distanced From Current Research?
(10:32) IP, Duplicate Funding, Conflict of Interest
(11:01) Leveraging Existing Resources and Experience
(11:36) Small Grants Can't Pivot Much
(12:04) Opportunity for Substantial Interactive Feedback
(12:36) Small Grants Will Always Be a Part of Your Career
(13:15) Some of Your Best Work Will Be From Small Grants