Destiny G.
★★★★★
“Absolute must have for anyone looking into grants. … Great resource, will be getting the remaining books in this series.”
Read on Amazon →Home › Shop › Finding the question and planning › The Grant Writing and Budget Planning Workbook
For students, postdocs and early-career faculty applying for funding
Strong science, weak proposal? Fix the proposal.
The Grant Writing and Budget Planning Workbook
Generic advice says "tell a compelling story". Nobody hands you the fill-in templates that turn blank pages into reviewer-ready sections. This workbook walks you from funder selection to submission: 56 worksheets, budget calculators and reviewer score sheets.
- A Specific Aims page built with a hook builder and a gap-objective-hypothesis framework
- Budget calculators and justification narratives for every line
- A mock review score sheet, so you see it as a reviewer will
By Dr. Rafiq Muhammad, MD, PhD · 214 pages · NIH, NSF, fellowships, K-awards, Wellcome and WHO · Paperback $26.99 · ★★★★★ 4 reader reviews
What readers say
Reader reviews
★★★★★ 4 reader reviews from Amazon
Stacy C.
★★★★★
“This is a comprehensive, very thorough workbook. If you are new to grant writing, or need to improve this is for you.”
Read on Amazon →Taylor R.
★★★★★
“Perfect when learning to budget for first time! Helped a lot!”
Read on Amazon →Tunisia H.
★★★★★
“A guide that will help figure out how to write and calculate the cost of a grant …”
Read on Amazon →Sound familiar?
Why good research goes unfunded
“I've rewritten my Specific Aims page six times.”
“The budget always gets thrown together the last weekend.”
“My summary statement listed problems I could have caught myself.”
“I don't know what reviewers actually score.”
Applications are often scored down for the proposal, not the science: an aims page that loses the reviewer, a vague budget justification, a missing compliance element. Each of these is preventable with a template and a checklist.
How it works
Match. Write. Review.
From choosing the funder to scoring your own application before you submit.
Step 1
Match the funder
Decode the opportunity, take stock of your preliminary data, and contact the program officer.
Step 2
Write and budget
Specific Aims, significance and innovation, research strategy, budget and justification.
Step 3
Review before reviewers do
Score it with a mock review sheet, and turn a summary statement into a resubmission.
What you will have
What you will build
- A Specific Aims page with a hook and a gap-objective-hypothesis structure
- Significance and innovation sections benchmarked against NIH review criteria
- A research strategy with pitfalls, alternatives and a Gantt timeline
- A line-by-line budget with personnel, indirect-cost and multi-year calculators
- Budget justification narratives for every cost
- Biosketches, letters of support and complete application checklists
- Fellowship and K-award plans, and adaptations for Wellcome Trust and WHO/TDR
- A mock review score sheet and a resubmission introduction builder
Look inside
Every template comes with a worked example
Every template has a worked example, completion criteria and a supervisor checkpoint. These are real pages. Tap to enlarge.
Is it for you?
Built for funding applications
It is for you if
- You are a PhD student preparing an F31 or dissertation grant
- You are a postdoc targeting a K-award, fellowship or first R-series grant
- You are early-career faculty facing a first major federal deadline, or preparing a resubmission
It is not
- A guarantee of funding. No book can promise that.
- A substitute for your funder's own guidelines, which change
- Limited to the US. It also covers Wellcome Trust and WHO/TDR applications.
Dr. Rafiq Muhammad, MD, PhD
Clinician-researcher, PhD from Karolinska Institutet, and author of the Mastering Research books and workbooks, used by graduate students from the research question to the viva.
Choose your format
Ways to get it
Paperback
$26.99 on Amazon
- The same 214 pages in print
- Write in it by hand
- Shipped by Amazon
Grant Writing & Budget Planning Kit
$19 instant download
- Every fill-in template, as a fillable PDF
- Type, save and print; US Letter and A4
Not ready to buy? Get the free toolkit for finding the question and planning by email and start today. Get it free
Questions
Before you buy
Is it only for NIH?
No. It covers NIH (R01, R21, R03), NSF including the CAREER award, fellowships and K-awards, and international funders such as Wellcome Trust and WHO/TDR.
I'm a PhD student. Is it too advanced?
No. It includes an F31 and dissertation grant adapter and a training and mentoring plan template for early-career applicants.
My application was rejected. Does it help with resubmission?
Yes. There is a summary statement analysis worksheet, a one-page resubmission introduction builder and a post-decision action planner.
Can I reuse the budget sheets?
Yes. The budget worksheets and score sheets are designed to be photocopied and reused across grant cycles.
Turn your next deadline into a strong application
Write it with templates, budget it line by line, and score it before reviewers do.
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