Grants Season is 12 Months Long

I've been in this environment for over 10 years now, and one thing I've learned - every season is grant season. While the spring and fall have the majority of the fixed deadlines, RFAs, PAs and other special announcements from various funders introduce additional deadlines at random times of the year. There are also those grants that require peer review panel presentations, the ones with mulitple levels of application (the LOI, followed by the full application, followed by the "opportunity" to submit supplemental info), and the ones with extensive post-award pre-launch processes that make for much scrambling around on short notice - made all the more intense by the allure of the almost-funding. Once you have the grant, the deadlines just continue, with reporting requirements, meetings, advisory boards, interim reviews. And those are just on the science side. On the admin side, there is also the perpetual prospect of an audit that might suddenly appear on the horizon.

Ultimately, what it means is that every season is grant season. It also means some other things:

• there is no good time to take vacation. No matter when you plan it, something significant will be scheduled either while you're away or immediately upon your return. Good planning and partnership with other managers and the PIs is essential.
• achieving excellence is difficult. This is no small problem for the perfectionists and type-a personalities that populate the scientific realm. The axiom "better is the enemy of good enough" is something else best remembered to keep sane.
• having a good team is critical to doing well and keeping your sanity. The combined efforts and knowledge of the group contributes to the success of everyone and of the projects and grants.

Lucky for me, we do have a great team here - scientists, project managers, writers, finance folks, operations - and we all work together to get things done. This allows all of us to do a good job on almost anything.

We all recognize that there are a few laws applicable to the world of grant writing:

• If it wasn't for the last minute, nothing would get done.
• A deadline extension is not a help. All it does is postpone the last minute. It also means the time until the next deadline is now compressed that much more.
• The computer network, email and the printers are preprogrammed to go on the fritz at grant deadlines.

In the genomics world, especially anything to do with DNA sequencing, the technologies move forward and change so quickly that things proposed today will likely be either already completed or require significant revision to include the most up-to-date techniques when projects are finally approved. While your proposal has to be state-of-the-art and forward-thinking, it also has to be plausible and technically achievable. With the current rate of change being on the order of a few months, and the current funding cycles being on the order of many months to over a year, it is impossible to write a cogent and concrete plan for a project without allowing for significant change. Funders abhor uncertainty and risk (which seems antithetical to funding for scientific research) and so scientists have to write confidently about the unknown.

What does all that mean? It means that there is always something to be done, that the best laid plans will often go awry, and that change is just as certain as the rain in Vancouver. A project manager's life is therefore not for those who thrive on completion, or for the faint of heart who can't endure the last minute deadline. But is for those who enjoy the challenge and satisfaction of enabling and contributing to the most fascinating research around.