Grant writing, a waste of time?

Most researchers are well aware that they spend considerable time preparing NHMRC Project Grant proposals.

A recent study published in BMJ Open quantified this by estimating the time researchers spent preparing grant proposals. Funding success was then predicted by time spent preparing grants.

The study included 285 researchers who submitted one or more NHMRC Project Grant proposals in March 2012 - the largest funding scheme in 2012. The 285 researchers who participated in the study submitted 632 proposals and 21% were successful.

Preparing a new proposal took an average of 38 working days and a resubmitted proposal took an extra 28 working days. This came to an overall average of 34 days spent on each grant proposal.

The study found that Australian scientists spend 550 working years preparing research-grant proposals, which translates into annual salary costs of $66 million.

Because just 20.5% of these applications are successful, the equivalent of some four centuries’ worth of effort returned no immediate benefit to researchers - the more time spent preparing a proposal did not increase the chances of success for lead researchers or other researchers.

Success rates for grant applications historically sit at around 20-25%. Thus, much of the time spent preparing applications has no immediate benefit to researchers or society, and there are large opportunity costs in lost research output.

The study authors suggest that the grant application process could be shortened so that only information relevant for peer review, not administration, is collected. This would have little impact on the quality of peer review and would save time, which could be reinvested into research.

The paper was recently published online.