As a practicing scientist with USDA-ARS for 30 years, I was fortunate to have mostly avoided having to scratch and beg for money to do my research. That is, I was supported by my agency’s base funding that allowed me to conduct research and report results without having to spend an inordinate amount of time 1) composing and submitting competitive grant proposals to acquire the funding to do that research, and 2) performing the myriad tedious tasks required to service those grants. Sadly, this is not the case for many scientists, and this is a problem that must be addressed if public institutions are to remain bastions of quality research and resulting technology development.

Dr. A. C. Leopold with the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research (division of Cornell Univ.) in Ithaca, NY spoke to this problem in the Feb. 16, 1979 issue of Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Below are some of his figures and estimates from that article entitled “The Burden of Competitive Grants”.

• The time it takes to write a grant proposal is conservatively estimated at 3 weeks. Proposals that are written by groups will take much longer to prepare.


• It is estimated that 3 person-days are invested in the review of a grant proposal. This is a very conservative estimate since nowadays most proposals go through several layers of review.


• In every competitive grant program, the majority of proposals are rejected. It is estimated that the rejection rate ranges from 70 to 85%. This amounts to a tremendous amount of wasted hours that could have been spent on conducting meaningful research and disseminating the results from that research

Below are some of the concerns registered by my present-day (2015) colleagues who are burdened with the time requirements of applying for and servicing competitive grants. These concerns support the above points from the 1979 article.

• Budget forms are much too specific, have too many narrowly defined categories, and require far too much detail for anticipated expenses. It is impossible to project the exact amount of money needed for each phase of a research project. Granting entities should use general budget categories that allow flexibility of spending based on current needs in each year or phase of a project.


• Concerning commodity board grants, members that sit on these boards and decide on proposal funding often rotate off and on too quickly. This often wreaks havoc on long-term funding that was initially granted, but is cut by a subsequent board that has a different agenda. It is difficult for scientists to conduct long-term research (the most productive) when continuity of funding is uncertain. Plus, these boards often depend on outside reviewers (again wasted time–see above) to grade the value of a proposal, and that may not be the best unbiased source of assessment.


• Granting entities often require Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) that are ambiguous in their definition and are not flexible enough to allow change in a research project that may be dictated by the results from each year or phase of the project.


• Southern US soybean scientists are often not funded unless they are part of a project that includes scientists from Midwestern US soybean states.


• In projects that include a large number of investigators (to enhance probability of funding), the amount of money allotted to each individual is often so small (e.g. $5,000) that it does not nearly cover the expense associated with the work requested or required, and is deemed by the scientists(s) to not be worth the paperwork time required to receive that small amount of money.


• The fund-granting entities should consider the time of year when proposals are requested; e.g. proposals for field research should be due in the off-season instead of the beginning of the growing season. For example, if a proposal submission deadline is May of this year, and the funding decision is not made until after the growing season, then the actual research will not take place until the following growing season, and the second year’s proposal submission date (again in May) will occur before even the first year of the project’s research has occurred. This does not make sense.


• If a scientist has more than one project with a funding entity, then that scientist should have to submit only one set of forms to that entity rather than having to submit duplicate forms for each project.


• In most cases, scientists who submit and service grant proposals do not have secretarial support. Each scientist completes his/her own paperwork associated with a grant, and that is a tremendous burden when an individual scientist may have to prepare and submit 5-10 forms and all of the reports associated with each grant.


• All of the above is even more critical when it is considered that many grant proposals are not even funded after all the paperwork requirements. This is a vast amount of wasted time that could have been spent on actual research and information dissemination (See above summary of A. C. Leopold statements)

From personal experience, I can state the following.

• Writing grant proposals is the most inefficient use of a researcher’s time there is. About the only good thing that comes from it is the educational effect from reviewing the literature and the subsequent insights gained about research directions that are the most needed.


• Reviewing grant proposals is not a preferred task for scientists, and it consumes their valuable time that can be better spent on their own research activities. A granting entity should have its own in-house capability of reviewing grant proposals and not infringe on the valuable time of outside reviewers. Also, professionals who submit research proposals would rather that their ideas not be made available to others who might unscrupulously gain from them.


• Public institutions decry and bemoan the migration of their scientists and specialists to private sector jobs. Maybe it’s time these institutions assess how their scientists are funded, and ask the question “Is the system of requiring these individuals to go outside the institution to solicit money for their research and extension programs contributing to the loss of quality professionals from the public sector ranks?” I contend that this is a major contributing factor to this migration.

What is the solution? Below are some thoughts to consider.

• When an institution makes a new hire, provide that person with a block of base funds that will allow him/her to establish and conduct a reasonable if not dynamic research and/or extension program. This may mean that institution administrators will have to decide which positions are absolutely necessary to fulfill the institution’s goals, and hire only for those positions and support them with adequate base funding. It is an affront to a newly hired professional to only provide them with a salary, an office, and a computer. They deserve more if they are to feel invested in and an allegiance and dedication to the hiring institution.


• Grant awarders should make every effort to simplify the proposal process, and then reduce the paperwork burden on grant awardees. This will require some serious determination of just what is enough in both processes. Ask these questions: “Is what I am asking for absolutely necessary to ensure the determination of a quality proposal?”, and “Are my post-award requirements likely to be an undue burden to the grantee?” The mantra in this case should be “Keep grant servicing requirements simple and concise, and do not ask for unnecessary, excessive, or superfluous information”. After all, a granting entity should only care about and have access to the research plan and results.

Composed by Larry G. Heatherly, July 2015, larryheatherly@bellsouth.net