Procedure: Preparing a grant application
The preparation of a successful grant application requires the following:
- Find (or better expect) the call early enough
- Have an innovative, sexy idea
- Find the ideal partners and collect all paperwork early enough
- Assign Roles and Responsibilities early enough
- Download and study the call requirements and all forms early enough
- Prepare an excellent application
- Plan for all logistics, including requesting clarifications and submitting the application, early enough
Roles and Responsibilities=
Person in charge of creativity and innovation
Most applications require that the project is creative and/or innovative. This begins from the short name of the project, to the logo and of course the content and its exploitation.
Innovation is everywhere, not just in a name or in the inclusion of an innovative process or a deliverable. The person in charge of this process does not necessarily need to come up with own ideas. S/he is however:
- Responsible to arrange creative meetings between project members to brainstorm about this angle
- Responsible to choose from alternatives in case there are disagreements
This person must know the call requirements regarding the subject of innovation, the current and future priorities and the evaluation and scoring process and methodology of the innovative character of the proposal.
Person in charge of preparing the actual content of the proposal
The whole Preparing a grant application is in place so that this person can focus on preparing an excellent application capitalizing on his/her personal interests and expertise. All others take the burden of more or less standardized tasks away, so that this person can remain focused at all times to the juice of the proposal.
This includes both the Background information and Methodology as well as the WPs that are relevant to the development and/or implementation of whatever is proposed.
Person in charge of the budget
The preparation of the budget is not easy. It might consume more than 30% of the time/effort invested. The reason is because it includes a number of complexities:
- The budget must be prepared according to requirements that differ from call to call
- The budget must comply with Future Worlds Center Budgetary Requirements
- The budget must take into consideration the current occupation of people whose names will appear on the application and their availability of hours in their time sheets
- The budget might continuously change because of changes in the distribution of tasks and/or changes in the consortium or contributions of partners
In order to deal with these complexities Future Worlds Center uses its own spreadsheets especially developed for different types of applications. This means that the budget will have to be moved to the proper forms shortly before the deadline. However, this process is sometimes underestimated. This is why one should invest the time to prepare the actual budget forms even though they might change.
Person in charge of the management and evaluation WPs
A good application has an excellent management system in place. It also has provisions for internal and/or external evaluations. These processes are to a great extent standardized. On the average about 10% of the score goes here. There is no excuse to loose even one point.
Person in charge of the Work program WPs
Person in charge of valorization and exploitation WPs
A good application has an excellent valorization and exploitation plan. These processes are to a great extent standardized. On the average about 10-15% of the score goes here. There is no excuse to loose even one point.
Person in charge of reviewing the application
Many applications miss the funding because of 1 or 2 points! There is no greater disappointment. This is why at Future Worlds Center one person needs to have the role of an "outsider" who looks at the application as an evaluator. This person should be given more or less complete drafts.
This person must study and know the evaluation and scoring process and methodology in and out.
