Preaward — Project Preparation

This chapter will take the starting point that research is a continuous process, where ideas, projects, data gathering, and documentation are closely interwoven. It will investigate the role of research administration staff facilitating this process, introducing the project life cycle, as a way to describe the different stages in a research process. We will concentrate on research with external funding using the generally acknowledged terminology of a preaward phase and a postaward phase to describe the difference between planned projects and actually running projects.

The chapter will give a thorough introduction to the preaward part of the project life cycle, from the project idea, finding funding opportunities, awareness raising, preparation and writing of the project, submission, and contract negotiation phase; finally we will touch briefly on the rejection of proposals and how they can be recycled. Each component will be described with emphasis on the need for support in each step of the preaward phase.