IHSE MEETING
What do they want? Writing Effective Grant Proposals
Meredith Vanstone, PhD;聽 Lawrence Grierson, PhD
Abstract: Having a great idea is not sufficient to secure research funding. Successful grant writing requires the demonstration of scientific, rhetorical, collaborative, and social expertise. In this workshop, we will discuss the funding landscape in Canada, elucidating some principles of grant writing success in the field of health professions education and offering some directed advice based on our experience securing funding and acting as reviewers for funding agencies. We offer the provocation that grant writers should base their applications around the question 鈥�what do they want to fund?鈥�. This question encourages a service-based orientation to research based on health systems challenges, decision-maker questions, or topical problems that are of central concern to the individual funding agency.
Meredith Vanstone, PhD and Lawrence Grierson, PhD are Associate Professors in the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University. Meredith holds a Canada Research Chair in Ethical Complexity in Primary Care. Lawrence is a scientist with the McMaster Program for Education Research, Innovation, and Theory. They both engage in health professions education scholarship and education program leadership, directing McMaster鈥檚 MD/PhD program (Meredith) and Health Science Education graduate program (Lawrence). As grant writers, Meredith and Lawrence have had success earning >24 million funding from funding agencies which are international (Greenwall Foundation, Independent Research Fund Denmark), national (CIHR, SSHRC, RCPSC), and provincial (e.g., HAHSO, PSI). Meredith and Lawrence will draw on these grant-writing experiences as well as their experience responding to proposals and initiating partnerships to do education and health related policy work partnered with and funded by decision-makers such as the CFPC, CADTH, and Simon Fraser University.