Preparing your application
When you are working on an application for research funding, it can be helpful to have additional assistance. We can help. We provide a full substantive review of complete grant applications up until three weeks prior to external funding deadlines. If you submit your grant application after this three-week deadline, we will do our best to provide constructive and substantive feedback, but we cannot guarantee we will have time. If you submit your complete grant application for the one-week hard internal deadline, we will provide a brief administrative review of your application.
A Research Activity Form must be submitted via ROMEO one week prior to the external funder's deadline. The Research Activity Form must include the full and complete grant application (or LOI, NOI, etc.) for review, whether of not the external funder requires institutional signatures. A Research Activity Form must be submitted for each stage of the funding process, such as LOI, NOI, etc.
Requesting a Letter of Support from the AVP-RSCE
Institutional letters of support are a common requirement of many research funding opportunities. Generally, institutional letters of support for research are prepared by the Associate Vice-President Research, Scholarship and Community Engagement (AVP-RSCE) in consultation with the faculty member and their faculty. The requirements for letters of support vary depending on the opportunity therefore it is important that ORSCE receive requests a minimum of 4 weeks prior to the opportunity deadline.
To facilitate the request the following is required:
- Details of the funding opportunity
- Contact information and internal deadlines of the leading institution, if applicable.
- Confirmation of institutional commitments, if applicable
- Copy of the draft application/proposal
- Additional information may be requested depending on the opportunity
Additionally, ORSCE will need to receive a Research Activity Form for the application/proposal in ROMEO before the letter of support is provided.
Please contact Ethan Ward (eward@mtroyal.ca) to request a letter of support from the AVP-RSCE.
For a table of common competitions and their deadlines, visit this webpage.
- Read the request for proposals and any instructions carefully. Use these documents to determine the priorities of your funder, and what criteria the funder will be using to evaluate the applications. You will want to keep these in mind, and be sure that each of these priorities and criteria are clearly addressed in your proposal.
- Make contact with the grants officer in charge of the program if you have questions. This person has a wealth of information available and can be very helpful in providing you with insights on how the committee responds to various strategies you might use in your proposal.
- Think carefully about budget. A lower budget is not automatically better - most committees want to see a realistic budget that they can see logically links to the activities and outcomes that you are proposing.
- One approach to putting together a solid budget is to mentally walk through each activity you plan to carry out. Use a pen and paper to list the costs of each activity as you think of it (for surveys, maybe this would be: fuel, paper for surveys, copying/printing, research assistant time, pens/pencils, etc). When you break down your activities into small steps it is much easier to estimate what your costs will be. Once you have made your list, add a value to each of the items, and determine which are and which are not eligible within the guidelines of the grant you are applying for.
- Be sure to consider and include overhead costs in your budget application.
- Read/watch any resources provided by the funder. Funders, particularly tri-council, provide many resources for applicants. Take advantage - watch the videos, attend the information sessions. Research funding is highly competitive and you need to give yourself every edge you can.
- Take advantage of MRU Resources. ORSCE often holds information sessions for major opportunities, brings in speakers on specific opportunities and on general topics of interest related to research and research funding, and offers one-on-one support. We're here to help - just ask.
Grants and Research Facilitator
One of ORSCE's core priorities is supporting researchers in the development of their research proposals and grant applications. ORSCE's Grants and Research Facilitator offers one-on-one support in developing your grant proposals. Yvonne can work with you from idea to proposal submission, or review proposals at any stage of completion.
Contact our Grants and Research Facilitator for:
Strategic Advice: The G&RF can sit down with you one-on-one and discuss your research direction, project idea, funding options and provide strategic direction in your options for funding your research. This can also include a discussion on how to better integrate your research and scholarship to make your teaching stronger, your research trajectory clearer, all while lessening your workload.
Grants Development: You have a plan and need to get started on the grant proposal. Contact the G&RF to help provide some direction in how to approach proposal development, strategies for some of those particularly tricky areas (budgets, for example), and feedback on drafts. The earlier you make contact, the more we can help.
Final Proposal Review: Just need an additional set of eyes for a final review of your proposal? Contact us at least THREE WEEKS before the MRU internal application deadline for a substantive review against the evaluation criteria of the competition.
Contact Us for more information.
Sample proposals
We keep a selection of sample proposals for certain competitions for you to review. Contact Yvonne Kjorlien at ykjorlien@mtroyal.ca to inquire as to whether we might have something relevant for the competition to which you are applying.
In addition to the ORSCE's in-house library, you may also explore grant proposals in the open repository Open Grants. This is an international repository with a concentration on US grants, but there are some Tri-Agency grant applications. There are successful and unsuccessful grant applications available.
Curated external resources
Aside from our services, there are many resources on the web you can tap to craft and strengthen your grant application.
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- For help crafting your proposal:
- How to integrate storytelling into your next research grant application (University Affairs, August 2024)
- Draft guidance on the use of artificial intelligence in the development and review of research grant proposals (Government of Canada, April 2024)
- Creating a Research Space (CARS) (University of Massachusettes Amherst Writing Center)
- Tips for Capturing Unicorns - Writing Your First Successful Application (The Research Whisperer, May 2018)
- Sharpen Up Your Application (The Research Whisperer, May 2021)
- How to write clear objectives for your research grant proposal (University Affairs, October 2022)
- Writing winning partnership grant applications (University Affairs, July 2023)
- For help writing your abstract or summary:
- The Prickly Impact Statement (The Research Whisperer, June 2021)
- For help understanding and articulating impact:
- What is Research Impact? (University of York)
- How to Show Your Project's Worth in Social Sciences and Humanities Research Proposals (University Affairs, November 2020)
- Research intelligence: how to write a compelling narrative CV (Times Higher Education, August 2021)
- For help crafting your Knowledge Moblization Plan:
- Guidelines for Effective Knowledge Mobilization (SSHRC)
- Knowledge Translation (CIHR)
- Knowledge Mobilization Tools (Reseach Impact Canada)
- Against utility and instrumentalization: knowledge mobilization for the humanities (University Affairs, May 2022)
- Letters of Support
- Drafting compelling letters of support for research grant funding (University Affairs, June 2023)
- Influencing policy
- How Can Researchers Maximise Impact by Engaging with Policy Makers? (COST, June 2022)
- For help planning:
- Work Backwards (The Research Whisperer, June 2015)
- Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) resources:
- Data Management resources:
- Dealing with rejection:
- On internal alignment: objectives, outcomes, outputs, and contributions in CIHR Project grant applications (University Affairs, April 2022)
- Achy breaky heart: coping with academic rejection (Research Whisperer, July 2013)
- CV / Tenure & Promotion Application preparation:
- Clearly you are accomplished, but you also present as being rather lazy (University Affairs, November 2022)
- Research Security and Research Partnerships
- A new era of research security (University Affairs, June 2023)
- Student Training
- 10 actions supervisors can take to create a create a healthy lab culture (University Affairs, January 2025)
- For help crafting your proposal:
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We are here to help
For questions and assistance with preparing grant applications, please contact ORSCE Grants and Research Facilitator, Yvonne Kjorlien, ykjorlien@mtroyal.ca.