It is critically important to understand the review process before you apply for funding. Every funding agency has a process that is a bit different. However, the majority use a peer-review system to evaluate proposal quality. This means that your research proposal will be read and evaluated by your scientists in your field of study. Most agencies have well established review criteria whereby their reviewers must evaluate proposals. For example, the National Science Foundation, which provides funding to scientists and engineers whose efforts are primarily in fundamental research, bases its peer review around two review criteria:
Criterion 1: What is the intellectual merit of the proposed activity?
Under this criterion, reviewers are asked to evaluate the significance of the proposed work, the qualifications of the research team, the adequacy of the research facilities including instrumentation, the creativity and originality of the project, and the thoughtfulness and thoroughness of the research design articulated in the proposal.
Criterion 2: What are the broader impacts of the proposed activity?
Specific issues here include the benefits of the project to society, the likelihood that funding will enhance the infrastructure for research and education in terms of personnel, facilities, instrumentation, and/or dissemination of findings, and the quality of the training and training environment afforded student participants.
Individual grant programs at NSF often have additional specific review criteria that applicants must address in their proposals. These additional criteria are identified in the published announcement for that grant program. Wise applicants read these announcements before beginning to write their proposal and address these criteria in their grant application.
NIH uses a set of five review criteria to evaluate its proposals:
- Significance;
- Approach;
- Innovation
- Investigator; and
- Environment.
Note, however, that these are very similar to those criteria used by NSF (discussed above).