Doing Economics

5.4 Sponsored Project Life Cycle
The typical life cycle of a sponsored project goes roughly as follows:
1. Pre-proposal stage 1. Many institutions require all grants to be
reported and processed through the institution for legal purposes,
no matter the size or source of a grant. Your first step should thus
be to let the people at your institution whose job it is to oversee
such things know that you are planning on applying for a given
grant. This is not a binding commitment, as it is common for such
plans to fall through. It is merely a heads-up to the staff at your
institution so they can plan accordingly. And given which
institutions can and cannot apply for specific types of funding,
this is a good way to ensure that you are actually eligible for the
grant you are targeting.
2. Pre-proposal stage 2. The most crucial step here is to read every
detail that is provided to you by the funder, both in the CfP or RfP
and in the documents available on their website. What will be
required of you, and when? Can you deliver on what is expected

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of you? What do funded projects look like? Does yours come
close to that description? Additionally, some funders (e.g., some
think tanks) come with ideological baggage. Does the funder
whose proposal you are considering applying to come with such
baggage? If so, are you willing to live with having a reputation
for doing ideologically driven work, even though that reputation
may not be deserved? If you answer all of these questions in the
affirmative, then you should submit a proposal. But if you have
any hesitation, you should probably think twice about submitting
a proposal, and wait for a better opportunity. A colleague who sits
on the funder side suggested that you may even chat with the
program officer to be sure you understand what the funder is
looking for, as this may lead you to grasp some of the nuances of
the research program being funded, which can in turn help with
how you write your proposal.
3. Set your budget. This is the right time to set your budget, because
(i) it forces you to make your collaborators list their budget needs
within the grant, (ii) allows you to adjust your goals or number of
team members if your budget is unrealistic, and (iii) the budget
itself will determine the scope of the work done under the grant,
and who is responsible for it. This is the time to figure out
whether you can use your grant to pay part of your salary, get
summer support,
10
 or buy out of teaching a course, and how much
it will cost to do so.
11
 For more on writing your budget, see Pain
(2017).
4. Make a list of all of the documents you will need to prepare and
assemble. If you apply for a small internal grant, you will usually
need nothing more than a short (i.e., two- to five-page) proposal,
a short CV, and a budget. But if you apply for a big external grant,
you will need a lot more (e.g., a list of all of your current and past
coauthors and collaborators, letters of support from research