Writing grant proposals is hard. They are harder than papers because they are part fiction. Fiction tends to come unnaturally to scientists and engineers who may be more comfortable dealing with known facts. Ph.D. students encounter a similar challenge when proposing their Ph.D. work. Below I present:

• a checklist of questions good research proposals tend to answer and
• a generic 1+15-page grant outline.

Take-away point: Focus first on the problem you seek to solve and why it is interesting. Only when properly prepared, will readers and evaluators be motivated to care about your potential solutions.

Seven Criteria

• CARE: Are you tackling an important problem? If you can make progress on it, will anyone care?
• NOW: Why now? If this problem is so important, why has it not been addressed before?
• IDEAS: Do you have concrete ideas for starting an attack on the problem and a vision for proceeding further? Is initial progress likely and subsequent progress possible?
• RESULTS: Do you have some preliminary results? Do you demonstrate a good understanding of the problem and the methods needed attack it further?
• PLAN: Do you have sensible plans and methods (e.g., concrete steps and ways of decoupling risks)?
• CAN-DO: Why you? Why are your qualifications and infrastructure appropriate?
• LEGAL: Have you followed the rules of the solicitation (e.g., compelling broader impacts for NSF)?

I find the above criteria valuable for both writing and evaluating grant proposals.

Generic Outline

• Summary (1 page): A one-page abstract that touches on all seven criteria.
• Introduction (2 pages): Discuss the problem, addressing criteria CARE and NOW and forecasting answers to other criteria.
• Preliminary Work (3 pages): Show some progress on understanding and addressing the problem, e.g., half of a good paper, to address the criterion RESULTS.
• Research Directions (4 pages): Show vision with concrete steps for middles parts of the grant (after the preliminary work) and promising directions for the later years, addressing criterion IDEAS.
• Research Methods/Plan (2 pages): Show you know what methods you need, steps you may follow, and why you can do it, addressing criteria PLAN and CAN-DO.
• Related Work (2 pages): Discuss the related work of others if this is not already integrated in other sections.
• Own Prior Work (1 page): Discuss your prior work, addressing the criterion CAN-DO.
• Broader/Educational Impacts (1 page): Discuss broader and education impacts, etc., addressing the criterion LEGAL. Read and consider citing articles on these matters.
• Conclusion (0 pages): Finish with a short, one-paragraph conclusion, as this is too late to say something important.
• References (extra pages): Show that you are familiar with the state-of-the-art, addressing the criterion CAN-DO.

Especially when authoring your first grant proposals, ask colleagues to privately share with you examples of successful proposals. Read and initially emulate their successful style; later develop your own approach. Also, liberally use figures, diagrams, and graphs to promote understanding even from those who only skim your proposal.

Get Feedback

It is valuable have your proposal read by researchers who are representative of the review panel that will evaluate your proposal. (This step has the added benefit of forcing you to do more work early.) One can classify panelists as:

• Someone within the field who is very knowledgeable of the area of your proposal (e.g., an expert in microarchitecture reviews a proposal on future branch predictors).
• Someone within your field whose research area is somewhat distant from yours (e.g., an expert in microarchitecture reviews a proposal on memory consistency models).
• Someone who does research in another area of computer engineering or computer science (e.g., CAD, VLSI, computer networks).

In my experience, getting comments from the last type of panelist is most important, because we naturally tend to bias too far toward our narrow specialties. One might consider the last group infinitely wise, yet perhaps not too familiar with your area.

Heilmeier Catechism

See also the earlier and more famous Heilmeier Catechism.

Acknowledges and Disclaimer

Thank you to Heidi Arbisi-Kelm, Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau, and Milo Martin for feedback and suggestions regarding this page. Thanks to José Martínez for suggesting and contributing to the "Get Feedback" section. Thanks to David Wood with whom I have written many proposals.

The views represented above are mine alone and do not necessarily represent the views of those who have funded me, principally the US National Science Foundation (NSF).

Please let me know what you think of this advice, as it is sometime hard to know what is and is not obvious.