Grant Writing Skills Training

23 Jul 2010

During 12-21 July, STCU held Grant Writing Skills Training Workshops in several cities of Ukraine, Moldova, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. Prof. Ian Butler (Canada) and Dr. Helmut Holtbecker (European Union) made presentations to more than 250 scientists, and held personal consultations with some of the participating scientists, to help these scientists develop better research grant writing skills, and to gain better understanding of the unique challenges facing these scientists in writing effective science research proposals.

Good proposal writing is important because research funding for scientific projects is highly competitive. Scientists prepare projects for government funding within their own countries, and also seek funding from private foundations and industrial companies. Thus, research proposals in all countries need to be clear, comprehensive, and well-written in order to be competitive.

It was noted that many project proposals submitted to STCU were well written, but that improvements could benefit everyone. Many of the participating scientists expressed the desire for the trainers to come back again to do follow-up workshops on how to market their technologies, how to find partners and investors, how to license, and how to start businesses.