{"id":9461,"date":"2017-02-09T11:50:27","date_gmt":"2017-02-09T19:50:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.www.grantcentral.com\/?p=9461"},"modified":"2017-02-09T11:51:33","modified_gmt":"2017-02-09T19:51:33","slug":"30-reasons-your-grant-proposal-may-not-have-been-funded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grantcentral.com\/30-reasons-your-grant-proposal-may-not-have-been-funded\/","title":{"rendered":"30 reasons your grant proposal may not have been funded"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why was my outstanding<\/em> grant application so intensely disliked by the reviewer panel? Although this is certainly a reasonable question for any failed applicant to ask, at least initially, in the vast majority (but unfortunately, not 100%) of cases, the answer is usually not too difficult to surmise. In our experience, assuming that critiques of proposals or summaries of review panel deliberations are available, a careful, neutral and dispassionate consideration of the comments provided will almost always provide pretty good insight that one or more of the following 30 reasons will be identified:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0Lack of commitment\u00a0by applicant (insufficient time allocated)
\n2.\u00a0Applicant failure to follow instructions
\n3.\u00a0Applicant use of outdated application format\/instructions
\n4.\u00a0Ideas proposed not relevant to funding agency mission
\n5.\u00a0Little or no programmatic relevance because of…
\n6.\u00a0Applicant failure to communicate with agency program officer
\n7.\u00a0Applicant failure to convince reviewers of the need for the proposed work
\n8.\u00a0Applicant failure to provide strong rationale for the project
\n9.\u00a0Applicant failure to demonstrate adequate knowledge of published literature
\n10.\u00a0Lack of essential applicant experience
\n11.\u00a0Proposal \u201cpadded\u201d by inclusion of non-essential personnel
\n12.\u00a0Missing evidence that environment is conducive to successful completion of the work
\n13.\u00a0Unrealistic amount of work proposed
\n14.\u00a0Methods proposed not appropriate for questions asked
\n15.\u00a0Missing or inappropriate statistical considerations
\n16.\u00a0Diffuse, superficial, or unorganized proposal
\n17.\u00a0Uncertain outcomes and\/or future directions
\n18.\u00a0Applicant failure to consider potential problems\/alternative strategies
\n19.\u00a0Interdependence of aims\/goals
\n20.\u00a0Some aims irrelevant to testing hypothesis or achievement of overall objective
\n21.\u00a0Ideas too complicated to easily understand
\n22.\u00a0Applicant failure to consider perspectives\/sensitivities of reviewers
\n23.\u00a0Too much detail\/too many variables
\n24.\u00a0Reader-unfriendly application
\n25.\u00a0Application written to make applicant happy (but not reviewers)
\n26.\u00a0Applicant failure to address all agency review criteria
\n27.\u00a0Unrealistic budget proposed
\n28.\u00a0Lack of adequate budget justification
\n29.\u00a0Misinterpretation of deadline for application
\n30.\u00a0Failure to get critical review from colleagues prior to submission!<\/p>\n

If you’re a reader of this blog and you’ve experienced proposal rejections, and would be willing to (anonymously) share the key reasons from the above list, we would love to hear from you<\/a>. If we receive a sufficient number of responses, we will discuss the most common reasons identified by readers, in future blogs, along with our detailed suggestions on how to avoid them. In the meantime, in the absence of such postings, readers will still be faced with answering the question: \u201cHow do I avoid making these common mistakes?\u201d\u00a0 The simplest answer to this question would be to read and precisely follow the detailed instructions and guidelines available in each of our versions of The Grant Application Writers\u2019 Workbook<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why was my outstanding grant application so intensely disliked by the reviewer panel? Although this is certainly a reasonable question for any failed applicant to ask, at least initially, in the vast majority (but unfortunately, not 100%) of cases, the answer is usually not too difficult to surmise. In our experience…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[21,31,41],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n30 reasons your grant proposal may not have been funded -<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"30 reasons your grant proposal may not have been funded\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.grantcentral.com\/30-reasons-your-grant-proposal-may-not-have-been-funded\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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