Grant writing as a specialism
Grant writing is a subspecialty of medical writing in which a writer helps researchers, institutions and companies win research funding. Its demand rests on how few proposals are funded, its clients buy the help for different reasons, and the work asks for science, knowledge of funders, persuasive writing and project management, under ethical constraints that also settle how the writer is paid.
Demand for grant writers
In 2019 grant writing and editing was a medical writing subspecialty of growing importance. One freelance medical writer saw a need, as the pressures on scientists increased worldwide, for medical writers skilled in the art of technical persuasion. Because a medical writer typically pairs with subject-matter experts and other stakeholders, the writer has to combine writing and editing to produce a competitive grant proposal in a deadline-focused environment.
In 2019 researchers in academia and industry increasingly relied on grant funding to move their work forward. One indication of an increasing need for grant writers in Europe came from the interim evaluation of the European Union's Horizon 2020 programme: 115,235 proposals were submitted between 2014 and 2016 with a success rate of 12.6%, and only a quarter of the proposals rated high quality were funded. Because delivering high-quality science is not enough to reach the funding threshold in so competitive an environment, skilled grant writers have an opportunity to add value by pairing with grant stakeholders. Organisations also appeared to be seeking funding in new ways: of the successful Horizon 2020 proposals, 54% came from newcomers who had not taken part in the previous EU funding effort, Framework Programme 7, and 73% of those newcomers were private for-profit companies. So there could be many European organisations new to grant proposal writing that could benefit from partnerships with experienced grant writers.
The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the nation's primary funder of biomedical research and has the most complex structure. In 2018, at some NIH institutes fewer than 10% of all applications were funded, and strict page limits made a convincing narrative hard to craft, so a proposal had to be well written and carefully prepared, as well as proposing innovative and important work, to have any chance of funding. In late 2018 a manager of a medical school's proposal development unit called this a golden opportunity for editors to play a key role in applicants' success.
In 2015 two grant professionals in an academic setting held that new opportunities were rising because of the highly competitive funding environment: universities were realising that faculty members need support to create more competitive grant proposals, and medical writers have the skills and knowledge to be successful grant professionals.
Why clients buy the help and what they buy
Many scientists are trained grant writers who love describing their new ideas, but some love the science and not the writing, some struggle to communicate in English, some are trained in medicine or another professional specialty but are new to research, and some are just too busy and need professional support. A large team may need someone to bridge gaps in communication and create a unified voice for the proposal, especially for infrastructure proposals, and an administrator may be tasked with moving a proposal forward without the time or expertise to make it happen.
Grant writing is a broad topic: working with a small company can be very different from working on a multi-centre proposal within a large organisation, and each funder has a different set of requirements, but the job responsibilities share some overall themes. A grant writer's responsibilities often include editing and reorganising information provided by the scientific and medical specialists, ensuring that all aspects of the proposal conform to the funder's specifications, consulting on content strategy, writing introductory sections and summaries, double-checking the data for accuracy and consistency, and preparing certain tables and figures. The grant writer may also take on related roles: identifying new funding opportunities, educating stakeholders on funding criteria and best practices, managing milestones during grant development, especially for large grants with multiple stakeholders, coordinating with administrative teams including regulatory affairs, contract management and finance, developing responses to reviewers, and communicating with the funding agency.
Medical editors seeking to document their value to grant applicants can start from the NIH's own website, which in late 2018 recommended that applicants seek out editorial guidance. Editors also provide value by educating applicants, especially trainees and early-stage faculty members, about the process of submitting NIH applications, because understanding the grant reviewers and what the funder wants are two essential components of any successful application, regardless of the science it proposes. Prospective applicants have to be up to date on forms, instructions and deadlines, all of which change, sometimes without much advance notice, so the editor can be a reliable source of accurate information and of suggestions on how to address new requirements. In late 2018, for example, the NIH had recently announced a change in the wording of the Scientific Premise section, and editors could help investigators interpret the announcement and suggest ways to respond to it. Medical editors can be "ideal middlemen" because they know how to meet an audience's needs for information and understand the need to stay up to date about the details of proposal submission and review. Many of these recommendations, though centred on the NIH, could apply to other funders.
In 2015 one academic grant professional held that a department at an academic institute or research centre needs a medical writer because the writer can bridge the gap between administration and researchers. A medical writer's skills can improve the number and quality of the department's submissions through editing, schedule reminders that keep submissions on track, and templates and checklists that streamline the process. With enough time, the writer may be able to offer resubmission mentoring, which involves reading between the lines of the reviewers' comments and helping the researchers rework the proposal, and may add value by holding targeted educational seminars about grant writing within the department, such as a series on one aspect of the process for a subgroup like junior faculty.
What the work asks
Key characteristics of an excellent grant writer include flexibility in collaboration, keen technical intuition and exceptional time management skills. According to two grant professionals in an academic setting, a grant professional there brings expertise and focus to the process of obtaining funding by acting as part researcher, part coordinator and part writer. One teacher of grant writing holds that being a good writer is not enough, because success at grants also takes skills external to the task of writing.
As researcher, the grant professional should be conversant in the subject matter, able to review experimental design and statistics critically, and able to understand the conclusions that can be drawn from the available data, and a good understanding of how the group's work fits into the broader research landscape is also important. A role as a grant writer and editor may suit a medical writer who likes leading-edge research and development and has technical knowledge across multiple disciplines.
A grant writer needs to know how to read and understand requests for proposals and grant invitations, and how to understand the audience of donors and reviewers and what they are looking for. A grant writer also needs to know how to build relationships with people at donor agencies, who need to know, understand and like a project to become its champions, and that can make the difference between being funded or not. Results-based management, a method of program design common in the international development sector, can be used to design projects with an outcomes-first approach, which donors are more likely to fund. Proposals and funding plans can be adapted to the requirements of different donors, from government to foundations to private funders, to help get different aspects of a project funded.
As writer, the grant professional is a huge asset in pulling together a solid grant proposal: scientists rarely have formal training in written communication, so the grant professional can contribute to developing the narrative and ensuring a clear flow of information throughout the proposal, and can use persuasive writing skills to convey a sense of excitement about the research while keeping the grant reviewers in mind. A grant writer needs to write concisely, in jargon-free plain language; not all donors are familiar with medical terminology, though correct terminology can and should be used with a donor who works in the field and has its own level of expertise. The choice of terminology is about knowing the donor and gaining an understanding of how they work. In one grant writer's experience, most donor employees and grant reviewers do not have deep medical knowledge and are not clinicians, so she had to write in a way that made sense to them, in plain language and in alignment with their values and policies.
As coordinator, the grant professional's role is all about project management: keeping track of internal and external deadlines, knowing how the team's work is progressing, identifying new collaborators or facilities for future proposals, and interfacing with people outside the immediate group, and the coordinator should like talking to people and be detail-oriented. A grant writer may have to project-manage massive proposals that have multiple parts, such as a narrative, a logical framework, a timeline and a budget, and numerous technical contributors. Grant proposals are large and complicated and require teamwork, research often does not proceed as planned, and other investigators may publish results from a similar study, which may require a change in grant strategy. One academic grant professional holds that it is important to be able to stay calm when others are not and find creative solutions, and recommends finishing one's own deliverables as early as possible so as to help others on the team as the deadline approaches. The week before a submission deadline will be intense however well prepared the writer is. In another's words, "a grant professional is a cat wrangler": keeping everyone on task and on time in an academic research environment is challenging, but the potential for making a positive impact is great.
Where grant writers work and what qualifies them
As with many medical writing subspecialties, grant writers might work freelance or part-time or be on the full-time staff, and a grant writer might partner with educational organisations, research organisations, non-profit companies, government offices and for-profit companies. Some organisations will hire a medical writer with a bachelor's degree, but many will seek writers with advanced degrees in science or medicine. As of 2019 there was no accreditation specifically for grant writing, but many clients appreciated the Editor in the Life Sciences (ELS), Medical Writer Certified (MWC) and Certified Medical Publication Professional (CMPP) credentials, which show a commitment to medical writing and cover aspects of the grant-writing process. In a university, grant professional positions may exist at the institution or department level or be a hybrid, and department-level work can be a good place to start, perhaps with greater freedom to define the role.
Finding the work
One academic grant professional holds that networking is key to moving into grant work: connections with people who are already doing the work make the difference to a writer's ability to make the transition. She recommends looking beyond "writer" when searching for grant professional positions, because a variety of titles may be used, such as program professional, director, administrator and officer. She also suggests that a medical writer consider pitching the creation of a new position to a department at an academic institute or research centre.
Ethical constraints
A grant writer must maintain strict ethical guidelines, which for funding proposals include presenting information fairly and accurately, without overselling, and avoiding plagiarism. It is also best to avoid the controversial practice of reusing text directly from the grant stakeholders' own manuscripts and grant proposals. The grant writer should provide expertise but not take on the role of the technical expert, which is the responsibility of the grant stakeholders. It is important to avoid taking projects on commission, in which payment depends on the success of the proposal, because upfront payment ensures that the writer has no financial incentive to overstep ethical boundaries. When high ethical standards are maintained, the medical writer can be a valuable and well-respected part of a research project.