Writing a Competitive Grant Research Proposal in the Social Sciences

Grant proposals are vehicles through which academic knowledge is used to meet the practical needs of man. Of recent, grant proposals in the social sciences have become popular as a scientific means towards meeting the developmental challenges of society. This is in realization of the inability of government, which has hitherto, been responsible for caring and funding the needs of humanity following the social contract of the 18th century. In contemporary civilization, government, all over the world, has increasingly been unable to solely meet the needs of citizens due to complexity of human endeavours, increase in population, corruption and inefficiency, coupled with scarcity of resources. Consequently, public spirited individuals, corporate bodies, individual and family Foundations popularly and variously known as grant funders, grant donors, grant makers do set apart resources to assist researchers meet the needs of human endeavours. The communication therefore discusses the basic steps that are required to present a competitive grant proposal that is capable of meeting the funding requirements of donor agencies. It identifies three important stages of writing a competitive research grant proposal to include the preparation stage, identifying the appropriate funders and the writing and submission of an acceptable proposal stage. It goes ahead to identify the major components of, as well as tips on, how to write a competitive grant proposal. In conclusion, the following recommendation are presented: one, efforts must be made by fund seekers at all times to adhere strictly to the funding requirements of donor agencies; two, fund seekers must be credible, competent, confident, curious, and committed ; and three, fund seekers must liken themselves to a fox, who is smart, aggressive, cunny, persuasive, patient and competent.