Project Strategy Builder

Funders now read a research project as a business case, and most proposals are written before anyone has settled what that case is.

The eighteen points below are what a project has to settle before a proposal can be written: what it is for, who it is with, how the work divides, what it costs and what happens to the results. No list covers every project; working through these in order is the fastest way we know to turn an idea into an outline a consortium can agree on.

0 of 18 answered

The counter, download and send buttons need JavaScript. With it switched off you can still read and print the eighteen points below, or write to info@s-n-m.eu and we will work through them with you.

The eighteen points, in six parts

the one point a register can settle
answerable only from inside the project

Four, four, two, three, four, one. Only point 9, choosing the call, is the half a database holds: the rest is yours.

Your answers are saved in this browser as you type, so they are still here when you come back, and nothing is sent anywhere while you work. Download the outline to take it into a proposal. If you would like us to read it, use Send to SNM, which is the one action that transmits your answers to us. Comments on your outline are free. If point 9 is the one you cannot answer, that dialog is also where to say so: choosing the call is an earlier stage, and a funding strategy is paid work quoted before it starts.

Where your answers are while you work

Everything you type stays in this browser. Send is the only thing that crosses to us, and downloading the outline does not.

IWhat the project is for

1Define the general objective of the project, and the specific objectives needed to reach it. (up to 1,500 characters)
2What is the state of the art, and what will this work do that is beyond it? (say what makes it possible now: a prototype has reached maturity, a new technology enables it, a new demand has arisen. Say where the work sits between idea and application, and the technology readiness level at the start and at the end if your field uses them) (up to 1,500 characters)
3If the work succeeds, what is different five to ten years later, and for whom? (name the change, not the field: what a clinician, a patient, a regulator or another laboratory would be able to do that they cannot do today) (up to 800 characters)
4Who will use the results, and what do they need that they do not have now? (patients, clinicians, regulators, industry, other researchers: this is what decides how the work is designed) (up to 800 characters)

IIWhat exists already, and what happens to the results

5What else is being done in this field, and by whom? (the closest results in the literature and on the market, and the groups or companies nearest to this: if one of them is better placed than you are, this is the moment to talk to them rather than to compete) (up to 1,000 characters)
6What are the results, and what happens to each one? (a dataset, a method, a prototype, a guideline: for each one, who uses it after the project, who owns it, what is published open access, and what has to stay closed and why) (up to 1,500 characters)
7Who carries each result forward once the money stops, and at whose cost? (your own group, a partner, a company, a hospital, a standards body, or nobody yet) (up to 800 characters)
8Which approvals would this work need, and do you hold them? (people, their tissue, their personal or health data, animals, or work outside the EU: each one is a permission that has to be in place before a grant can be signed) (up to 800 characters)

IIIWhich call, and what it expects back

9Choose the most appropriate funding calls (submission deadline, one stage or two, constraints on consortium composition, topic, and the indicative contribution per project, which tells you the size of project the call expects) (up to 800 characters)
10Read the call text you chose: for each outcome it says it expects, what would your results contribute, who would benefit, and what has to be true outside the project for that to happen? (other projects, the regulatory environment, the markets you are aiming at, how users behave) (up to 1,500 characters)

IVWho it is with

11Should you be the coordinator? (evaluate the return on the time it will cost you: coordination is a job, not a title) (up to 800 characters)
12List the partners you would want, and say what gap each one fills. (balance scientific, technical and political contributions, and gender; name each partner's country, since a collaborative call normally asks for at least three independent partners from three different eligible countries) (up to 1,200 characters)
13Who outside the consortium would say in writing that they want the result? (a future user, a hospital, a company, a patient organisation: name the kind of organisation, and say whether you have asked) (up to 500 characters)

VHow the work is done, divided and paid for

14How will the work actually be done? (the overall method, and the concepts, models and assumptions behind it: how the disciplines are brought together, how sex and gender are handled in the research content itself where that applies, and what you will share openly and when) (up to 1,500 characters)
15Divide the work into work packages: for each one name the partner that leads it, what it produces, and what has to be finished before the next can start. (up to 1,500 characters)
16Propose, for each partner, the share of the budget and the person-months behind it, in proportion to the work it leads. (check whether the call is a lump sum, which is agreed in advance against the work rather than reimbursed against what you spend) (up to 1,200 characters)
17What are the two or three risks that would actually change the outcome, and what would you do about each? (a technical one, a partner one, an approval you do not yet hold) (up to 800 characters)

VIShaping the call before it is written

18Can you reach the people who write the calls, before the text is fixed? (programme committees, advisory groups, the national, European and international technology platforms in your field, open public consultations: name the ones that cover your topic, and say which of them you or your network already sit on.) (up to 800 characters)

0 of 18 answered

What happens next

done
Your outline

The eighteen points, settled as far as you can settle them on your own.

Download it to take into a proposal, or send it to us for comments.
free
Our comments on it

We read the eighteen answers and write back: what is missing, what is thin, and which points an evaluator would press on before the proposal is written. Free, and it commits you to nothing.

Send your outline →
paid
The proposal itself

Grant writing end to end: templates, partner data, budget and submission, with the draft read against what real EU evaluators criticise.

What grant writing covers →

Point 9 is the one to check: if you cannot yet say which call this is for, the outline is premature, and the stage before it is choosing the call. The Funding Radar (opens in a new tab) register is free to search yourself, and a funding strategy is the paid version of that work, across your institution rather than one project.