Natural Science Forum / Biology / Biology / July 2008

Bob,
I'm sorry to hear about your plight. But you trying to
make money via grant indicates that you are not quite
with "it". Get a f.cking job in any Radiology Dept in any
Hospital instead of waiting for a govt. handout...

Eric Gisse, look at Bob's situation. You are heading
into the same direction as he does, when you think
like you do, that "science" will make you a living... ahaha...

Get with it, do your hated but missing soc-study credits,
get your BSc degree and then get out to make money...
or start looking for a cheap "hunger-cloth" for you to chew
on for a long time... (like Bob is doing now) ... unless you
come from parents who can afford to have a "son" that
is financially dependent on them forever...
Good luck to you, Eric.
hanson

I am cross-posting this to sci.research.careers and you
should add s.r.c to the groups you track.

Bob wrote:

You should also start reading Science, Nature, ... the
NY Times, Washington Post or even Time Magazine in order
to get an idea of the current funding situation for the
sciences.

You've been out of the loop long enough that you've got a huge barrier
to getting back in. Find yourself a job in a research lab and let
someone else do the soul-killing job of grant writing. At least, to
start. If you develop a track record, you might end up in a position
to apply for an institutional position from which you can apply for
grants for yourself. Good luck, and prepare for a steep uphill slog.

Dangerous Bill

Think laterally
You are need paying work  not necessarily a research job.
A scientific education give you a multiplicity of skills that might be
used to earn a living.
I faced a similar situation when I was 48 the company I was with was
taken over and closed down I decided to do consultancy work.
How to get clients lots of ways
Most sucessful cold calls on companies. Result were not immediate but
many eventually bore fruit if company had a technical problem.
One very sucessful method Walk around super market looking for faulty
products. Contact manufacturer and offer to assist fixing the problem.
One of my early successes Client " we have already fixed that problem
but we have problems x y &z you may be able to assist with"

Remember you are employable only if your labour will profit your
employer.

Bob M

The following is a simplification, but refers to the
major traditional funding streams:

Every major granting institution and foundation I can think
of requires submission from an institution, not from a lone
scientist, so your alleged affiliation had better be sound.

The paperwork part is easier than a tax form, but most
institutions require that you submit your applications to
their grant offices weeks in advance of any deadlines.  They
don't want and can't handle every professor and applicant
coming to their office on THE day of the NIH deadline and
saying, "Can you check this over and submit it by 5 PM?"

(The "paperwork" part has to be reviewed in advance; you
can revise the sci-tech content until the actual deadline
when your grants officer simply hits the "submit" button
to send your application off to the NSF, NIH, DoE, DoD, etc.)

While individuals can apply, they need to do so from a
structured organization ("Bob's Research, Inc.") and not
"Bob's Mailbox") with all the official tax and business
numbers the agencies will request.

Bill Penrose mentioned SBIRs and STIRs.  There, too, you
need to have a "host" to guarantee that they will provide
the place where the research will be done and it must
already exist.  "If I get the grant and the overhead, I'm
sure to find a lab to let me work in their facilities."
is unacceptable.  It will be hard to get a commitment ahead
of time.  They are not allowed to commit space and resources
to more than one project, e.g., leverage one bench for
multiple grants.  No matter how good you think your proposal
is, your SBIR host probably wants to keep their resources for
their own use.  When labs are audited they can get in
trouble if it turns out that they promised the same bench
for use on five grant applications.  That kind of crap
only works in the world of high finance (LTCM, anyone?
Mortgage meltdown, anyone?)

Kind of a Catch-22: A small business will probably let
you use a bench (for the overhead $$) but won't commit
until after you get some money.  You can't apply for
the money without the commitment.

Grants are made to INSTITUTIONS, not individuals, and
the institutions are expected to provide professional
oversight (you know, like Stanford using overhead to pay
for their president's yacht or MIT paying for mystery
resources).

Unless, of course, you're hoping to win a MacArthur
Fellowship.

Is Bob aware of the funding levels at the NIH, NSF, DoD,
DoE, etc.?  Less than 20% of grant submissions get
funded.  First-timers have around a 6%-7% success rate.
And most of those first-timers are tenure track junior
faculty with start-up money, students and new research
results trying to get their first independent grant.

(Clarification: "first timer" doesn't mean first time grant
application; it means "not yet had a major independent
grant funded": still trying to become a first time funded  
researcher.  Some junior faculty submit and re-submit MANY
grants but never break thru and get funded.)

No real position, no lab, no results, ... no grant.

I don't care if you actually DO have a cure for cancer
or the solution to some other great problem.  The
funding agencies don't care about ideas and they have a
long track record of rejecting Nobel prize winning work
when it was in its proposal stage.  They fund the fundable.

Kind of like TV executives who say, "Show me some innovation!
I want some shows that are new and different!" but reject every
new pilot and clarify their meaning: "I want something fresh and
different! You know, just like "Friends" or "Desperate Housewives"."  

The US system is broken and we are losing generations of scientists.

Do you want a job?  Learn to speak Chinese and you'll be ready
for science jobs of the future!

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I'm afraid you still don't get it.  VCs aren't looking for
an ingenious solution to an otherwise unsolvable problem.
They are looking to get in with an investment and get out
with a profit ASAP.  They want Big Names and a Superstar
SAB (scientific advisory board).  They don't care -- and
wouldn't know -- if the technology is crap or bogus.

To put it another way, VCs fund SALESMEN, not SCIENTISTS.
If you can spin a good yarn and promise billions of dollars
in the markets and hype, hype, hype then you have a chance.

I don't want to name specific companies and their razzle
dazzle CEOs who have delivered NOTHING but promises in
exchange for megamillions of investment.  (Correction:
they have sometimes delivered inflated IPOs that soon
crashed but pleased the VCs who cashed out early leaving
small investors busted.)

I still recommend that you take some Chinese language
lessons at your local adult ed outlet (library, community
college, etc.).

Sorry for the conflicting info.  Perhaps this is what the
rules allow.  Maybe individual program directors are allowed
to modify requirements or "encourage" making better arrangements
to strengthen the chances of a submission.  In other words, a
subtle or not so subtle, "Don't waste our time unless you're
serious and an established host is a good sign of that."

So THAT message is: If you find a program (SBIR, STIR, etc.)
for which you think you can qualify, contact the program
manager and ask for their advice.  Listen carefully for sounds
of "Sure!  Submit anything you want!  I have a boilerplate
rejection letter and a circular file for submissions from
delusion crackpots."

But seriously, GOOD LUCK!!  Prove us wrong!

Well, one of my faves was when the program manager gave me
what sounded like very good advice, walked me through what
I should _definitely_ include and definitely _not_ include,
what the program's emphasis _is_ and _is not_, etc.

Unfortunately, the review panel did not get the same
memo and I got a quick rejection on, quite literally, a
point by point contradiction of about 5 major items the
program manager advised me to incorporate and emphasize!!

E.g., "Applicant [I mean 'supplicant'] emphasizes A [per
advice] that we, the panel, don't care about and fails
to address Z [per advice] that we, the panel, really like."