Grants

Mind Your Way brings over a decade’s experience supporting academics’ competitive grant and fellowship applications across all NHMRC, ARC, and other major funding schemes.

We cater to applicants at any stage of the grant writing journey, be they experienced researchers with an established history of funding success or early-career researchers wishing to develop their writing skills.

Our services encompass one-on-one grant edits, reviews, and consultations, but also group workshops and a self-directed online course to ensure we meet the different needs and levels of “readiness” among both sponsors and applicants.

How are we different?

Grant applications require more than just accurately written text and a worthy topic.

In the highly competitive world of research funding, they also require a compelling story that connects funders to the problem, the urgency and potential impact of the research, and the credentials of the individuals or teams named on the proposal.

That’s why all our grant support services start off with an initial Story Analysis, which explores the essential building blocks of a persuasive narrative.

This is a sophisticated and structured method that Mind Your Way has taught for over a decade and that delivers profound insights and grant success to clients.

While any reviewer can put comments in the margins – “Make this point stronger!” or “Rewrite for clarity!” – we take the time to explain what is missing and provide guidance on how to address it. This means we remove the guesswork behind such feedback and offer a pathway for what the client needs to add or change.

What our clients say

  • "Our project proposed to implement the first Help Line for low back pain in Australia. The challenge that we faced was to create a convincing and exciting story for the proposal. Mind Your Way’s services to edit the grant and tell a persuasive story definitely made the proposal stand out. Mind Your Way had a significant impact on the whole group of investigators, helped the grant to be approved and put my university in the spotlight as the leading institution for establishing a Help Line for people with low back pain."

    Professor Paulo Henrique Ferreira, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney

Services


1. Grant Edit

Grant edit Mind Your Way

Mind Your Way’s signature Grant Editing service provides the most comprehensive, hands-on support in crafting a compelling proposal. It consists of an initial “Story Analysis” phase followed by two rounds of editing.

In contrast to other services described on this webpage or offered by other companies, the Grant Edit is an in-depth collaboration between the applicant and one of our skilled editors who commonly rewrites key sections of the text, rather than just making suggestions for the applicant to implement themselves. In short: The Grant Edit allows us to make the recommended changes on the page, with and for clients.

Who is it best suited for? Grant Edits require a well-developed and complete draft of the relevant sections of the funding application. They are also particularly effective for near-miss applications from the previous round, or for new proposals that have already undergone internal peer review or mentoring within the applicant’s institution.

  • The search for a good story begins with one of our editors conducting an initial assessment of the strengths and primary needs of the draft. This initial assessment helps the editor ascertain the best strategy and investment of time to enhance the draft. The editor will then identify what essential story components are either present, missing, or underdeveloped. Outcomes from the Story Analysis will then inform a set of questions that the editor will ask the applicant before any editing or rewriting begins.

  • The First Edit begins with a structured, editor-led interview with the applicant designed to extract critical insights related to the significance of the research problem, the benefits of conducting the work, and the expected impacts and outcomes of the applicant’s proposed project. The editor will then rewrite relevant sections of the text (where required) to create a more engaging and impactful story, strengthening the applicant’s arguments and highlighting the significance of their research. All changes, additions and comments from the First Edit will then be shared with the applicant for their consideration and response.

  • Once the applicant sends the draft back to us, the editor will review their amendments based on the First Edit and clarify any questions they might have. The editor will then conduct a final review of the relevant sections’ structure, pitch, flow of argument, reasoning, and expression. A thorough copy edit will also be completed to check for consistent spelling, grammar, punctuation, and style. A clean and track-changed version of the final draft will then be shared with the applicant. The editor will be available to answer any remaining questions within a few days following the delivery of the draft.

2. Grant Review

Grant review Mind Your Way

Our Grant Review service provides high-level feedback and recommendations on a complete or near-complete draft application, guiding researchers to make the recommended changes in their proposals themselves.

We undertake NO editing or rewriting as part of this service. Instead, the Grant Review provides applicants with an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of their draft application, and with recommendations for how to make their draft more competitive. As part of the Grant Review service, applicants will also have FREE access to Mind Your Way’s online grant writing course.

Who is it best suited for? Grant Reviews suit applicants who have either a well-developed or a less developed but COMPLETE first draft. They are also particularly useful for applicants who were unsuccessful in a previous round but have not begun drafting their resubmission – in these cases, the Grant Review can serve as a catalyst to reposition the project and develop a more compelling pitch.

  • The search for a good story begins with one of our editors conducting an initial assessment of the strengths and primary needs of the draft. This initial assessment helps the editor ascertain the best strategy and investment of time to enhance the draft. The editor will then identify what essential story components are either present, missing, or underdeveloped. Outcomes from the Story Analysis will then inform a set of questions that the editor will ask the applicant before any written feedback begins.

  • Building on the Story Analysis, the editor will prepare written feedback on the relevant draft sections, with a focus on providing priority recommendations for how to improve the application. Common topics covered in the feedback include ways to strengthen the significance of the research, expand on the envisioned benefits of the work, clarify the impacts and outcomes of the proposed project, and highlight the applicant’s leadership and contributions. The feedback will be shared with the applicant, and a time will be scheduled to discuss the feedback.

  • Once the applicant sends their amended draft back to us, the editor will review how the feedback has been incorporated or considered in the revised draft and answer any questions the applicant might have. During this Second Review, the editor might make further comments on how the applicant has interpreted or implemented the feedback from the First Review and suggest some final refinements to enhance the draft.

3. Project Consultation

Project consultation Mind Your Way

While our Grant Editing and Review services require a complete draft application for our editors to work with, we also assist individuals or teams in the early stages of their project development journey.

When ideas are still being explored for a project, or when an Expression of Interest document needs to be crafted as part of a multi-stage submission process, our Project Consultation service offers early strategic feedback on the emerging project pitch.

This consultation requires nothing more than a 2-page elevator pitch, a short EOI document, or the early draft of a Project Description. We use this text to conduct our signature Story Analysis and then meet with the individual applicant or team either in-house or online to share our feedback and recommendations for how to improve their project pitch.

Who is it best suited for? Project Consultations are ideal for applicants in the early phases of developing their funding pitch or an Expression of Interest document.

  • The search for a good story begins with one of our editors conducting an initial assessment of the strengths and primary needs of the draft. This initial assessment helps the editor ascertain the best strategy and investment of time to enhance the draft. The editor will then identify what essential story components are either present, missing, or underdeveloped. Outcomes from the Story Analysis will then inform a set of questions that the editor will ask the applicant before any written feedback begins.

  • Building on the Story Analysis, the editor will prepare written feedback on the relevant draft sections, with a focus on providing priority recommendations for how to improve the application. Common topics covered in the feedback include ways to strengthen the significance of the research, expand on the envisioned benefits of the work, clarify the impacts and outcomes of the proposed project, and highlight the applicant or team’s leadership and experience in relation to the project. The feedback will shared with the applicant(s), and a time will be scheduled to discuss our recommendations – either via a 90-minute online discussion (for individual applicants) or a facilitated half-day team workshop delivered in-house at the applicants’ institution.

4. Grant Writing Training

Grant writing training Mind Your Way

At Mind Your Way, we recognise that grant writing requires more than just a compelling research idea or topic.

If your grant application is to have a chance of success, then you must build the strongest possible connection between your text and its readers. Your colleagues and assessors will not only judge your work by the quality of your ideas; they will be swayed by how you tell the story.

Our grant writing training courses aim to build the skills of researchers as persuasive communicators in their writing to improve the quality of their applications and make them stand out within the highly competitive field of research grant funding.

Who is it best suited for? Grant Writing Training provides current and future applicants with a range of professional development opportunities, regardless of where they are at in their grant writing journey. However, our personalised workshop (described below) delivers the greatest benefit when participants have a working draft of their application that can be shared and discussed during the event.

Facilitated Workshops

Our personalised workshop format involves participants' submitting a short sample of their own draft application content to the facilitator two weeks prior to the event. We then prepare tailored exercises around participants' drafts, for discussion, feedback, and development during the workshop.

In our standard workshop format, we use sample texts instead, as participants do not have the opportunity to pre-submit their own writing for feedback on the day.

In both workshop formats, participants have access to winning grants from clients we have previously worked with across a number of ARC and NHMRC funding schemes. The workshops teach high-level writing skills, tools, and principles that are not aimed at a specific funding scheme but can be applied across all types of proposals.

Online Course

Mind Your Way’s online grant writing course is a free-standing training module which participants enrol in for a period of six weeks.

Participants can complete the learning at their own pace, logging back into the course as often as they wish. The content covered in this course is identical to what we teach in our facilitated workshops and contains self-take exercises, downloadable resources, and samples from winning grants which we have worked on with real clients across a number of ARC and NHMRC funding schemes.

The course teaches high-level writing skills, tools, and principles that are not aimed at a specific funding scheme but can be applied across all types of proposals.