Improve the competitiveness of your grant proposal

Success in winning external funding is a critical part of academic and industrial hiring, tenure, and promotion decisions. But most PIs receive little or no formal training in writing competitive grant proposals, and have to learn by trial and error how to succeed in winning funding for their research. Yet, with mentoring and coaching, anyone can greatly improve the competitiveness of their grant proposals.

Join our expert, Thomas Blackburn, PhD, as he demystifies the grant award process and put you and your colleagues on the road to success in winning grants

As a college professor/researcher, Dr. Blackburn had about a 50% funding rate for his research and institutional grant proposals. (In contrast to the overall funding rate being 20-35%). As a Program Officer for the ACS Petroleum Research Fund, Blackburn managed over 3,000 new research proposals, for which he solicited and read some 10,000 expert peer reviews ranging in length from one paragraph to four pages.

What Blackburn knows about excellence in proposal writing is distilled from these experiences, from reflecting on them while writing Getting Science Grants and from individual counseling of dozens of young scholars as they worked to establish themselves as effective, independent researchers.

Good science ideas by themselves are not enough

To achieve the optimally persuasive submission, the applicant must also harness the art of grant writing. That's why the Principal Investigators Association is sponsoring the national audioconference: Writing Excellent Grant Proposals.

For only a tiny fraction of the cost of consulting with an outside grant company, this audioconference will walk you through:

• In-depth look at the proposal review process and review criteria
• 3 rules for writing clear scientific prose
• Tactics to develop high-impact, hypothesis-driven research
• 2 simple tricks for identifying likely funders in your area of research.
• Workable and convincing strategies for Assessment and Dissemination
• And much more!

Meet Your Presenter: Thomas R. Blackburn, PhD. Thomas R. Blackburn holds undergraduate and doctoral degrees from Carleton College and Harvard University, respectively. After a thirty-year career in college science teaching, he joined the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund (ACS-PRF) as Assistant Program Administrator, retiring as Senior Program Officer in 2002. In the latter capacity, he managed over 3000 grant proposals (soliciting and reading over 10,000 expert peer reviews) and recruited panelists for and participated in dozens of proposal funding conferences. Dr. Blackburn is author of Getting Science Grants and Equilibrium; A Chemistry of Solutions; and co-author of Chemistry: Molecules that Matter. His teaching and research in the areas of analytical and geochemistry have been supported by grants from The National Science Foundation, NASA, ACS-PRF, Harvard University, and the governments of North Carolina, Switzerland, and the UK. Since 2003, he has been principal of Thomas R. Blackburn Grants Consultancy, a consulting service that offers proposal writing workshops for colleges, universities, and scientific societies, and individual counseling on proposal preparation (www.science-funding.com). He lives in Washington DC, where he is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, The Geochemical Society, and the Hunt String Quartet. This On-demand presentation is brought to you as a training tool by the Principal Investigators Association, which is an independent organization. The presentation, tools presented and their contents are not connected with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) or the National Science Foundation (NSF), nor are they endorsed by these agencies. All views expressed are those personally held by the presenter and are not official government policies or opinions.

Registration Includes:

• Access for one phone line (unlimited listeners)
• Expert answers to your tough questions
• Complimentary attendee package, including the speaker's complete presentation handouts
• Live Q&A session (you may also e-mail your questions in advance)
• No Risk! 100% satisfaction guarantee, or full refund

Have additional questions?

You have the floor with the speaker during an interactive Q&A. Remember, you can submit your questions in advance via email.

If you have questions or would like to speak to our conference specialist, please call Sharonda Thompson at 800-303-0129 ext 506.