Acquiring funding… next to getting your results published, it is often a major task in the work of a scientist. Both are in a large part based on writing skills, but simply translating your scientific writing skills into a large funding application is not the best approach. In order to give our community hands-on advice on how to improve their grant writing, we hosted a 90- minute interactive webinar: Get Funding: Convey the impact of your science.

Originally, this subject was planned as a breakout seminar during our annual conference last spring, but then a certain virus interfered with all our plans. With the annual meeting postponed, we decided to pilot this session online. Together, three of our valorization team experts on grant writing, Veerle Fleskens, Alexander Turkin and Amber Liu, took the 24 attendees through the basics of conveying impact and made it tangible through three effective and simple tools.

In the plenary opening, we spent some time discussing what it means to convey the actual impact of research. In an illustrative run-through with Oncode Investigator Tineke Lenstra, questions you can use to get clarity on the impact of your research were showcased. Next, three tools were introduced to the participants: the hourglass model, Minto’s pyramid and the clever use of tables. Ultimately, it became clear that developing impactful grant proposals is not the same game as writing scientific manuscripts.

The webinar became truly interactive in the breakout sessions following the plenary introduction. Groups of four to five researchers were led through two exercises to apply the tools introduced in the plenary opening. Through this, our participants got a chance to see how these simple frameworks can translate into their daily practice. It was also fun for us to moderate these engaging breakout sessions and we’d like to thank all the Oncode researchers for their participation and contribution.

All in all, we look back to a successful and interactive webinar. In the coming weeks, we will make sure to make the course materials available online for our community as a part of our Strategic Funding Support Programme. As well, be sure to keep an eye out for more (online) events!