How to increase the success rate of your grant applications


Often people get overwhelmed by the different funding opportunities that exist and consequently they don’t focus on the ones that really matter for them and have the more chances for a winning grant application. Here is a technique based on the five fingers that can immediately allow us to identify the most promising call topic for our team, organisation, our colleagues or even our clients and increase the success rate of their grant applications.

In this training moment, I reveal to you that the most attractive call topic(s) that you need to focus and increase your success rate are the one(s) that

  1. Support heavily your mission and vision of your  team, organisation or client to be involved in the project
  2. have funded projects in the recent past of similar profile (size, structure, ambition, etc) that you can develop
  3. facilitate the access to funding authority representatives and experts/evaluators for getting feedback
  4. have attractive success rates or indicators
  5. allow sufficient time before their submission deadline for preparing a great grant application.

Enjoy the training moment/video below:

For adding further value to what you have learned from this article/video, you can now register in my Funding Expert Accelerator Programme  that in addition to have exclusive access  every month to unique in-depth trainings on EU funds that I deliver nowhere else but only in this programme, you can also have  an one-to-one live session with me remotely where I can guide you specifically on any challenges you are facing (e.g. your strong and weak points and how to work for becoming a great funding expert, which funding programmes can support your idea or your organisation’s mission, how to get involved in proposals as partner, how to deal with specific issues in regards to a grant application or a funded project that you are involved, etc.) You set the agenda for our discussion and coaching session according to your own needs.

Finally, I provide below 5 key-messages I kept from this video that everyone should remember that wishes to be a great funding expert with value.

Evaluators don't "buy" what you do; they "buy" why you do it on your grant application form.

Identify the profile (size, structure, ambition, team, etc) of the already winning projects related to your targeted call topic and assess first whether you can develop a project with similar if not higher profile.

Being able to get feedback from funding authority and experts at early stages can be a key factor of success of your grant application.

It is not only a) the success rate in specific call topic that you need to assess before focusing on a specific call. Check also b) the success rate over the projects above the threshold, c) the expected no. of projects to get funded and d) the total mark that the last project in the approved list has received.

The closer the submission deadline of our grant application is, the MORE compomises we have and the LESS great our proposal is.

 

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Nikolaos Floratos

About Nikolaos Floratos

Nikolaos Floratos after his undergraduate and postgraduate studies with distinction as engineer in London (Imperial College, City University), UK, has been working for a number of consultancy and Information Technology companies as consultant and project manager across Europe. He completed also an MBA (Master in Business Administration - National Technical University of Athens and Athens University of Economics and Business) and the last 19 years he is involved in planning, managing and evaluating large and small projects in the area of research, education, ICT (Information Communication Technologies), social inclusion, entrepreneurship, standardization and consumer issues. As a funding expert, personal trainer and coach, he has supported hundreds of individuals and organisations mainly from Europe but also from all over the world on managing state funding (e.g. from European Commission, National Funds, etc) and receive support for deploying their business idea or mission and he has proved that anyone can become a great proposal writer or project manager of european funded projects through proper guidance, training and coaching. He is an expert on behalf of the European Commission on evaluating and reviewing projects and proposals since 2003 and currently, he researches through a PhD how eLearning courses can increase students' engagement and motivation. He is the creator of the Funding Expert Transfomation Process™ system that can transform anyone to a great proposal writer and project manager of european funded projects. He is also interested in investing in highly innovative start-ups and SMEs and he is member of the European Business Angel Network and of the Institute of Leadership and Management. He has received more than 50 recommendations at his linkedin profile (www.linkedin.com/in/floratos) as a funding expert, coach and trainer. He is also the author of the ebook "Who are the Horizon 2020 champions and what to learn from them". He is also listed in the top first three search results by google as "Funding expert".