1. GETTING YOUR WORK FUNDED
ANDREAS ZELLER,
CISPA/SAARLAND UNIVERSITY

2. YOUR IDEA

3. WHAT YOU WISH

4. WHAT YOU GET

6. GETTING YOUR WORK FUNDED
1. Framing Your Idea
2. Planning Your Work
3. Funding Bodies
4. Selling Your Idea

7. THE PROBLEM
• What is the problem?
• Whose problem is it?
• How important is this?
• Can you explain the
problem to laymen?
• In two sentences?

8. THE SOLUTION
• What is the solution?
• Is this new?
• Why should it work?
• Is it elegant?
• Is it hard?
• Is it useful?
• How will you find this out?

9. INCREMENT AND RISK
• Small increments
• Safe
• Low gains
• Larger increments
• Risky
• High gains (if any)

10. SCIENCE IN SOCIETY
• Larger increments
• Risky
• High gains (if any)

11. –John Archibald Wheeler
“In any field, find the strangest thing and explore it”
SCIENCE IN SOCIETY

12. TURTLE AND LOCUST
http://www.nature.com/news/reviewers-are-blinkered-by-bibliometrics-1.21877
• Focus on short-term impact
and land a job
• Focus on long-term impact
and become a well-reputed
scholar
• High risk = high gains

13. GETTING YOUR WORK FUNDED
1. Framing Your Idea
2. Planning Your Work
3. Funding Bodies
4. Selling Your Idea

14. GETTING YOUR WORK FUNDED
1. Framing Your Idea
2. Planning Your Work
3. Funding Bodies
4. Selling Your Idea

15. PLANNING: PEOPLE
• What do you need to
address the problem?
• Is it just you and a PhD
student, or a multi-million
initiative?
• Can you do it alone, or do
you need others?
• Typical granularity: PhD
student (3–4 person-years)

16. PLANNING: CONSORTIA
• Can you solve the problem with
industry or other academics?
• Who will be in your consortium?
• Who does what, when, and why?
• Who coordinates them?
• Who controls them?

17. PLANNING: TIME
• How much time do you
need to address the
problem?
• Typical: 2–5 years, then
reevaluation (or
resubmission)

18. GETTING YOUR WORK FUNDED
1. Framing Your Idea
2. Planning Your Work
3. Funding Bodies
4. Selling Your Idea

19. GETTING YOUR WORK FUNDED
1. Framing Your Idea
2. Planning Your Work
3. Funding Bodies
4. Selling Your Idea

20. FUNDING BODIES

21. FUNDING BODIES

22. APPLIED RESEARCH
Focuses on technology transfer
Evaluation by success of cooperations (= working according to plan)
Example: EU consortia projects

23. BASIC RESEARCH
Focuses on advance of scientific knowledge
Evaluation by scientific success (= publications)
Example: NSF, ERC, DFG, …

24. TARGETED RESEARCH
Focuses on advancing a specific issue
Evaluation by success in the field + competition
Example: DARPA grand challenges

25. TARGET YOUR FUNDING BODY
• The scientific value may be one of many factors
• Composition, soundness of project plan, diversity,
adherence to standards may all play a role
• Be sure to obtain and target evaluation criteria –
manuals for evaluators should be your bible
• For consortia, consider a specialized agency
• Talk to directors of funding bodies for hints

26. GETTING YOUR WORK FUNDED
1. Framing Your Idea
2. Planning Your Work
3. Funding Bodies
4. Selling Your Idea

27. GETTING YOUR WORK FUNDED
1. Framing Your Idea
2. Planning Your Work
3. Funding Bodies
4. Selling Your Idea

28. PREPARING A PROPOSAL
• Start planning many months in advance
– started 18 months before
• Reserve lots of time for writing proposal
– 2–3 weeks (consider a retreat)
• Get as much feedback as possible
– 12 internal + 12 external
• Obtain successful proposals from colleagues
– And talk to them about their success recipes

29. YOUR REVIEWERS
• Have read all your earlier papers
• Thoroughly understand Computational
Complexity of Bio-inspired Computation in
Combinatorial Optimization
• Are eagerly awaiting your latest and greatest
• Are fresh, alert, and ready for action
have never heard of you
have heard of it, but wish they had not
could not care less
just came back from lunch
and are ready for a nap
Originally by Simon Peyton-Jones

30. SELLING YOUR IDEA

31. SELLING YOUR IDEA
• Highlight novelty (why is this new?)
• Highlight potential impact (why is this needed?)
• For Software Engineering, focus on usefulness
• Elegance and intellectual challenge come as extras

32. OVERCOMING THE MONSTER
• Tell a story
with you as the hero:
• You are the ONE.
• You have the TOOL.
• You solve the PROBLEM.

33. SELLING YOUR IDEA
• Funding panels are composed all across CS,
or even all across all science disciplines
• Do not assume the obvious:
Problem and solution should be easy to state
• Give talks to sharpen your idea
• Excite colleagues from other disciplines
• Clarity, clarity, clarity!

34. SELL YOURSELF

35. SELL YOURSELF
• Collect and provide irrefutable evidence for
impact and excellence
• Papers, talks, students, tools…
• Lasting impact in academia and industry
• Quality as networker and advisor
• Don’t forget a single achievement!

36. Don’t just say… But say…
ACM Fellow
Youngest European ACM
Fellow ever
Best Paper Award
First Best Paper
Award for a debugging
paper
1100+ citations
Most-cited Software
Engineering paper of 2005
SELL YOURSELF
Search for unique selling points:

37. PROJECT WRITING
• Have a clear title and abstract
– get the interest of the reviewer
• Have a clear structure and plan
– you know how to organize things, don’t you?
• Get to the point
– no buzzwords, no yada yada, no lingo
• Polish. Polish. Polish. – and polish again.

38. GETTING YOUR WORK FUNDED
ANDREAS ZELLER,
CISPA/SAARLAND UNIVERSITY