Fifteen Ingredients for a Successful Research Proposal

Scroll down to see Prof. Martin Knapp's advice for a successful research proposal with links to supporting tools and resources for each stage in the process from the Social Care Research Impact website

Brilliant ideas are great, more prosaic ideas are often better...

Be able to answer: Why you? Why now?

Here are some tools to help reflect on why you and your team are best placed to deliver this research, and to map out the process by which you plan to deliver the research:

Propose incremental steps, not the reorientation of science

Present clear research questions

Propose questions that clearly connect to real world issues

Here are some methods to help you better ground your research questions in real world issues:

Meet funder's requirements and be explicit about how you respond to commissioning calls and guidance

Here are some tools and approaches to support you to more readily fit with funders requirements:

Use robust methods and ensure the study is feasible - pragmatically, ethically, methodologically and skill-wise

Here are some methods and approaches to ensure that your research is well managed:

Ground the research questions in the literature

Here are some tools and methods for finding and evaluating research:

Make clear that you build on what is already known

Collaborations are key, especially for complex proposals. Develop collaborations with those who will use the findings

Engage potential subjects of the research as early as possible in the research process

Here are some tools and methods for identifying stakeholders and engaging them:

Be clear on planned outputs from the research. Plans for knowledge exchange and impact are essential

Here are some tools for ideating and planning delivery of outputs:

Demonstrate your previous research was completed, published and impactful. Show that you can deliver

Request all the resources you need for research and impact. Demonstrate value for money

Make time to reflect and revise before pressing ‘Send’