PROCEEDINGS OF THE FIRST WORKSHOP ON Writing of Competitive Research Proposals Held on 24 June, 2011 At Chuka University College

Abstract

Introduction and Background Earlier observations show deficiencies in proposal writing skills among Academic Staff and Research Scientists that limit their ability to: Compete for competitive grants; Conduct quality research; and Guide graduate students. Poor scientific and technical writing skills limit contribution to advancement in science and knowledge. Poor written communication skills impair visibility of NARIs Research for Development (R4D) in development and policy arena. The quality of the proposals is generally weak in the region. For instance, the International Foundation for Science (IFS) recognizes that proposals from Africa are very weak compared to those from other regions e.g. Asia. Therefore there is an urgent need to strengthen proposal and scientific writing skills in academic institutions/NARS to improve quality of research proposals and to pass these skills to others, particularly graduate students and young scientists. The lecturers in Chuka University College have great ideas for research. The question is, how are we going to pay for it? The immediate answer is that we have to write a good research proposal, which refers to “A formal, written document that describes scientific goals and research plan/methodology for soliciting the necessary resources from a funding agency”. Remember, your proposal will be just one among many worthy proposals, and these days the sum of resources requested collectively often exceeds the resources actually available by up to ten fold. Therefore for us to succeed, we must write a research proposal that will in some way standout and succeed in a very crowded and competitive funding environment. Writing such a proposal requires a great deal of thought and hard work targeting mostly technical and discipline specific issues. The starting premise of this one day workshop is that many non-technical shortcomings should be mitigated. The odds for our proposals will be improved if we plan and write our proposal with an understanding of who and how our proposal will be evaluated.