Twelve tips for writing educational research grant proposals

Abstract

Background: The need to promote educational research and faculty development grants and assist medical educators with grant writing is well documented in the medical education literature.

Aims: To assist medical educators with writing educational research grant proposals, we propose a set of 12 tips for writing competitive grant proposals.

Methods: We distilled challenges and effective strategies and approaches from our experience in writing and assisting with education research grant proposals. We presented these challenges and approaches at faculty development workshops on writing educational research grant proposals conducted over the past 3 years and evaluated the outcomes of these presentations and the participant's experiences with educational research grant writing.

Results: Approximately 100 participating faculty provided feedback, affirming that these sessions were very useful for developing grant proposals and for reaching out to funding agencies and that these faculty development efforts in grant writing are much needed.

Conclusions: Based on our experiences with education grants and workshop efforts, we propose a set of strategies for faculty to seek grant sources and write promising education research grant proposals.