If you remember one rule about getting your research funded, remember not to go it alone. Almost all modern research is done in collaboration, but when it comes to writing grants many aspiring Principal Investigators feel they are on their own. They may have never been asked to read a colleague’s observing time proposal or they worry about giving away their ideas. Here’s a secret: Ideas get better when they are shared. 

Before I go on, let me tell you why I too was hesitant to share my ideas. I started my academic career in the early nineties at a very prestigious, private research university. The speakers at the weekly colloquium were the who’s who and the who who-hopes-to-be-someone of the entire field. The atmosphere of the colloquium always made me think of the circus in ancient Rome. With the invited speaker as the defenseless Christian and the senior faculty as the hungry lions. We graduate students were the simultaneously horrified and fascinated audience that somehow couldn’t look away. A question 5 minutes into a talk may unnerve a presenter along the line of: “What makes you think you are right, if you can’t even answer the most basic question about the process I invented 30 years ago?” That’s not an atmosphere that teaches you to share your ideas.

I’d like to think that the academic environment has changed in the generation since, but I am not that sure. Fear learned early in our career has a lasting impact. It is also true that early on the tender shoots of your bright future need protection from the harshest winds so they can grow and take root. But don’t keep protecting them too long, as they need the changing winds to gain strength and resiliency. Remember that some of your most cherished ideas will not make it and some of them you may have to weed out yourself because it isn’t their time, or because they simply weren’t as good as you thought when you woke up in the morning. But have faith that more ideas will come from the same place and ask your friends to help with the gardening.

When you are ready to share an idea, and that should be much earlier than you think now, start with a friendly critic and ask them specific questions. “Do you think this could become the basis for an observing proposal?” If you are an experimentalist: “Who do you think can I work with to build out the theory of this?” “How could we strengthen the engineering side of this?” The key is to center yourself as the expert of your idea, because you are, and bring in help to make it stronger. 

You may notice that I do have a strong bias for interdisciplinary collaborations, because that’s what I do. If you are someone who wants to go deeper and deeper in a specific discipline, by all means, find someone who studies what you study. Just know that you will likely get responses that will lead you deeper in, not broaden you out. The most successful science leaders I met know what they know and rely on others to strengthen other areas. They frequently say: “I don’t know, but I know who does.”   And when nobody knows, then it is interesting. 

 Asking for money — grant and proposal writing is exactly that — is no different from research. Without exposure, your idea can’t grow strong enough to make it through the harsh gales of panel reviews. Standing up to these winds takes strong roots and some flexibility. Give your ideas a chance to grow strong by exposing them often to feedback and ask: “What do you think is the core of this idea?” “What would make this stronger?” You may be surprised by how willing people are to help. Just remember that you don’t have to go alone.