For Grant Applicants
For the researcher putting a proposal together: where the money is, what the call is really asking, how to compose a consortium, and how to approach a partner you have never met.
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What a grant applicant needs, and what we publish
A grant applicant is a researcher assembling a funding proposal, usually against a deadline set by someone else. The problems at that stage are specific: finding a scheme whose purpose actually matches the project, reading a call closely enough to know what will be scored, deciding which competences the work plan is missing, and persuading strangers in other countries to take a work package. This page collects everything we publish for that work. It is written material and free tools. We are not a grant consultancy, we do not write or review proposals, we have no relationship with any funder, and nothing here can tell you whether an institution is eligible for a call. Eligibility is settled by the call text and your research office.
A proposal calendar, working backwards from the deadline
1. Before the call opens
Draft work programmes and recurring due dates are public. Decide which scheme fits, check eligibility against career stage and organisation type, and start talking to the partners you already know.
2. As soon as the call is published
Read the binding documents, not just the topic text: the general annexes, the proposal template, the page limits and the budget rules. Write the work packages before the partner list.
3. First two weeks
Write to candidate partners individually, with the call, the deadline, the work package and an indicative budget. Ask each one for their institution's internal deadline, which is not the funder's.
4. Mid-period
Confirm the legal entity and funder registration for each partner, collect letters of support, and put the ethics and data management requirements in motion. These wait for nobody.
5. Final three weeks
Freeze the consortium. Adding a partner now means their tasks are written by someone else and their signature is a gamble. Circulate the full draft to every partner for comment.
6. Institutional deadline
Your research office and every partner institution sign off days or weeks before the funder does. Treat the earliest of those dates as the real deadline.
What is here for a proposal
The funding map
The five kinds of funder and what each one is buying, plus the official portals and award databases worth checking on a schedule.
How to decode a call
Which document is binding, the published scoring grid, the signals in the wording, and what the budget figures imply.
Consortium composition
Coordinator, beneficiary and associated partner, one visible job per partner, and the checks before anyone enters the budget.
Partner outreach templates
Three copyable emails: a partner chosen on the science, a competence the call demands, and the single follow-up.
The conversation after yes
Roles, authorship rules, data access and exit, settled between researchers before the grant starts.
A candidate list from your project
The research partner finder reads a project description and suggests researchers publishing close to it, with a reason each. It says nothing about eligibility and contacts nobody.
Checks relevant to this topic
Part of our 80+ automated checks
Structure and section completeness
For the papers the project produces, not for the proposal itself: missing sections, ordering and IMRaD compliance.
Reference completeness
Every in-text citation matched to a bibliography entry, the most common gap in a manuscript written under deadline.
Abstract structure
Background, objective, methods, results and conclusion, the elements editors look for first.
Declarations and funding statements
Funding acknowledgements, competing interests and data availability, which grant-funded papers are required to carry.
The practical edge your peers already use
Across disciplines and career stages, researchers reduce bottlenecks and submit with confidence: clearer drafts, easier guideline compliance, and less back and forth with co‑authors and reviewers.
I use it to review my students' papers. It instantly highlights typos, missing references, and unclear sections, helping me focus my feedback on the quality of the research instead of surface errors.
Ilyass
Professor in Mechanical Engineering, ÉTS Montréal
I relied on it throughout my thesis to strengthen my writing. It suggested clearer phrasing, improved flow between sections, and ensured my references were complete before the final deadline.
Manon
Master's Student in Speech Therapy
I write research in both Portuguese and English, and it adapts perfectly to either language. It provided precise feedback in Portuguese, helping me maintain academic tone and consistency across my drafts.
Afonso
PhD Candidate, UFPE
It gave excellent advice on how to rephrase and present ideas more clearly and concisely. The suggestions helped me refine my arguments and make my research more impactful.
Félix
Postdoc Researcher, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology
A round of suggestions helped to generally refine the text of my paper and, moreover, to present some of its key points in a more focused form.
Oleg
Professor, Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University
I use it to review my students' papers. It instantly highlights typos, missing references, and unclear sections, helping me focus my feedback on the quality of the research instead of surface errors.
Ilyass
Professor in Mechanical Engineering, ÉTS Montréal
I relied on it throughout my thesis to strengthen my writing. It suggested clearer phrasing, improved flow between sections, and ensured my references were complete before the final deadline.
Manon
Master's Student in Speech Therapy
I write research in both Portuguese and English, and it adapts perfectly to either language. It provided precise feedback in Portuguese, helping me maintain academic tone and consistency across my drafts.
Afonso
PhD Candidate, UFPE
It gave excellent advice on how to rephrase and present ideas more clearly and concisely. The suggestions helped me refine my arguments and make my research more impactful.
Félix
Postdoc Researcher, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology
A round of suggestions helped to generally refine the text of my paper and, moreover, to present some of its key points in a more focused form.
Oleg
Professor, Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University
For Grant Applicants questions
No. We publish guides and templates, and our free tools suggest researchers whose published work matches a document you upload. We do not draft proposals, do not review them, and have no relationship with any funder. Our manuscript checker works on papers rather than on applications, so it is useful for the publications a project produces, not for the proposal itself.