Some Review Criteria for Grant Applications

Greetings again. I hope you’re doing well.

Recently, after AuthorAID announced new grant recipients, someone posted a comment containing this request: “Dear Dr. Barbara, It would be useful if you could disclose the selection criteria for this type of awards.”

The following are some main criteria that AuthorAID—and many other funders—use in evaluating grant applications (grant proposals).

• Appropriateness: Does the applicant propose what is requested? (For example, when we request proposals for workshops on research writing, we sometimes receive proposals for workshops on other topics. Of course, they do not qualify.)
• Quality of Proposed Item: For example, if someone is proposing a workshop, do the content and design of the workshop seem excellent? If someone wants a travel grant to present research at a conference, does the research seem original, well done, and important?
• Impact: Will the funding help more than just the applicant? For example, will it ultimately aid colleagues or students? Will it have institutional-level impact? Will it have country-wide impact?
• Effectiveness of Writing: Is the proposal informative, well organized, and clear? Many applicants aren’t native speakers of English, and the English needn’t be perfect. However, the reviewers must be able to read the applications easily—and to see that the applicants have sufficient communication skills to succeed at what they proposed.

AuthorAID receives many good applications, and we wish we could fund them all. We encourage applicants not receiving grants to review the criteria, look at the grant-application guidance in the AuthorAID Resource Library, and apply again.

Until the next post—

Barbara