Grant-writing skills at the early-career level: Focus on the FWO junior/senior Postdoctoral fellowship - 2024

Grant reviewers often say that wonderful projects do not get funded because the idea was not communicated clearly enough. Excellent science is not enough for writing a successful grant proposal. To get funded, you also need excellent grantsmanship. So how do you make sure the advantages of your work are understood and appreciated?

The trainer of this workshop is Dr. Julia Staykova-McKinnon (scriptorium consulting).

Programme

Remote workshop format with additional time commitment for self-study.

Self-study: lecture series in podcast format; 190 mins listening time. 
Live meetings: 2 meetings of 4 hours. Each live meeting includes lecture time, space for discussion, and analysis of examples from publicly available funded grants.

Live meeting 1

• Session 1: Analysis of the funding vision and evaluation criteria encoded in the FWO application format, with a broader discussion of persuasion strategies in a funding application at the junior career stage.
• Session 2: Structure in the 10-page FWO project outline, with focus on the main proposal sections: Rationale in state of the art, objectives, and methodology/work plan.

Live meeting 2

• Session 3: The Work Plan cont.: conveying project management and career development plans via tools such as dissemination, milestones, the timeline chart, and mobility / networking arrangements.
• Session 4: The candidate’s profile: CV sections and motivation statement.

All sessions include a lecture component, time for Q&A, analysis of short examples based on European funded proposals shared online as open access.

Learning outcomes

After having attended this workshop, participants will be able to...

• interpret correctly your application form and evaluation criteria, targeting an A score;
• use strong structure in State of the Art, Objectives, and Methodological Programme – the key scientific sections;
• provide clear, convincing answers to the key requirements of novelty, feasibility, and project impact;
• write a compelling abstract that conveys all the key project strengths;
• make the most of your academic record, integrating CV elements into the FWO proposal so as to show emerging international recognition and a record of diverse relevant achievements; write a compelling motivation statement.

Competences

An important part of preparing for any further professional step is becoming (more) aware of the competences you have developed and/or want to develop. In the current workshop, the following competences from the UHasselt competency overview are actively dealt with:

• academic research competences:
  • obtaining and managing funding
• interpersonal competences
  
  • persuasion
  • presentation skills
  • written communication
• task-orientedness:
  • project planning

For whom?

• PhD students & postdocs interested in improving their grant writing skills can register. PhD students & Postdocs planning to apply for FWO junior/senior fellowship will get priority to attend.
• max 25 participants

When and where?

• Session 1: October 22, 2024 - 9:00-12:30
• Session 2: October 24, 2023 - 9:00-12:30
• All sessions will be organized digitally.

Registration

• Register here until October 13, 2024.
• Please register only if you can attend all sessions. As places are limited, registering does not automatically imply that you will be able to participate. You will be notified by email in due time.
• Please cancel your registration at least one week in advance in case you cannot make it (cf. cancellation & no-show policy).

Acknowledged as?

• DS BSH: category 'research management & communication skills' - course on general research skills
• DS HLS: category 'transferable skills' -one transferable skills course
• DS ST: category 'research management' - info session on writing a successful project proposal