The six stages, as listed on our course website, are as follows:
- Identify a problem;
- Generate an idea to solve it;
- Figure out if the solution furthers the mission of the organization;
- Research sponsors that match missions;
- Write proposal;
- Get funded.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do to identify a problem. It's true that I've wanted to visit the Faber pencil factory in Germany for a while now. I understand they have quite the archive on pencil-related history. Perhaps what I need is a grant to fund a brief visit. Say, two or three months.
The link which was the most interesting, though I'm not sure whether it was the most useful, was the one for the National Science Foundation. The link itself actually wasn't right, but I got to the right one from there. I'm always interested in what qualifies as "science" and what doesn't. C.P. Snow's book, The Two Cultures, comes to mind. I haven't read it, but I've read quite a bit about it, and of course almost anyone in academia has spent time wondering why (for instance) the folks in Chemical Engineering don't hang out with the specialists in Medieval French Teacups.
One of the grant opportunities I looked at was called CyberTrust. Most of the funded projects were pretty heavily engineering oriented, but some had to do with studying social trends in communication. I find that intriguing.
2 comments:
Yes, Pete, nice work. You're reiterating for yourself what the steps are. I have updated the link to NSF. Things change. The grant would need to help you do something more than a nice vacation. Perhaps this can lead toward your dissertation, for instance. If the problem is there is information there that you can't get to and absolutely must have, then that may be something worthy of funding to someone.
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