On to Grantland.

OK. I spent the last two weeks with my fingers in my ears pretending I don’t have a grant due at the end of November. Two now. But I’ve passed on being PI of one of them, so I’m able to focus on my big R01eq. Which is coming along. I have about 11 pages written, of the 25 I have to fill. My agency uses the older format. I find myself deeply jealous of people submitting to the NIH who only have to put in 12 pages. But, my funding lines are a bit higher.

And of course, if writing grants isn’t your thing, you should know that when I say “25 pages”, I don’t actually mean 25 pages. The grant application will be probably 100-150 pages long. Perhaps a good bit longer. The 25 page limit is only for the research plan. There are reams of supplemental material. Support letters, bios, and funding statements of each person associated with the grant. Statements on human subjects protections, facilities, institutional support. Several short descriptions of the grant of varying lengths. Budgets. Budget justifications. For each year of the grant. And any papers-in-press relevant to the application which the reviewers will not otherwise have access to.

This all has to be crammed into a .pdf that was built by crack-addled monkeys. And not especially bright crack-addled monkeys. So. I’m writing my goddamn methods section now. In the event that I am stuck, I can always fill in the busy work of letters of support, etc., which needs to get done and can be a palette cleanser for the mind to do. It’s a laborious, miserable process to write a grant. I’m always amazed by people who can bang them out in a couple of weeks. It takes me months.