
Step 4: What is known? Indicate the key knowledge and competing technology that already exists. Step 3: Solution – State your proposed solution to the stated problem. What is your big idea? What are the top 3 features of your solution. Step 2: Who is your target audience? Who is seeking a solution to this problem? Who would buy into your solution by funding your grant? What type of colleague/expert are you selling to? What are the top 3 elements of the problem? Step 1: Problem – Clearly state the real world problem your project will address.
2018 PROJECT CANVAS YBHS PDF
If you want a pdf version, go here ( link).Įnter a title for the proposal at the top of the slide. The title should be short and capture the big idea. I entered fields for you to type into easily to address the necessary issues needed to vet a new project idea.
2018 PROJECT CANVAS YBHS DOWNLOAD
Please download and use as you like! The reason I share it in these formats is that Keynote and Powerpoint make it easy to create one file for grant ideas and then you simply duplicate the THE GRANT MODEL CANVAS slide as needed to explore a new project idea. THE GRANT MODEL CANVAS is available in Word ( link), Keynote ( link) and PowerPoint ( link) formats. For lack of a better name, I call this THE GRANT MODEL CANVAS. Here I share a LEAN CANVAS-style framework for working up grant ideas that are great solutions to important problems. They clearly explain to the target audience why the problem is important and your solution is great. Great grants provide outstanding solutions to important problems.

Thus, the process of developing new research projects for grants fits well into the LEAN CANVAS-style framework.
2018 PROJECT CANVAS YBHS FULL
A lot of work and iteration is required before a new research project idea is worthy of a full grant application. Writing a finalized business plan is similar to writing a finalized grant application, and every new research project idea is similar to a new start up company idea. The platform is simple for iterating and exploring ideas. To learn about LEAN CANVAS for startups go here ( ). Experts in the area determined that one should be able to draft a more business plan easily to work through the issues and evaluate different ideas – and easily change directions.

The start up process is very dynamic and creative. The idea behind the LEAN CANVAS approach is that writing a full finalized business plan for a start up company is silly because you need to work through so many different ideas and issues. It is simple and useful and I thought that it could be easily modified to help with grant writing. Over the past few years, I became familiar with the LEAN CANVAS system for creating start up companies. The problem was, a simple framework for iterating and working up grant/science project ideas is lacking. As an assistant prof starting out, I wrote way too many grants on half-baked ideas and needed a better way. If you sat down and wrote a full grant application for every idea you have, it would be far too much work. During this process, many different ideas and issues need to be explored and addressed and researched.

An idea for grant application/project will typically go through many, many iterations before something great emerges. Writing a great grant or designing a transformative new project is hard work and many issues need to be considered carefully. A LEAN CANVAS-STYLE APPROACH TO DEVELOPING GREAT GRANTS AND PROJECTS
