Tips for Writing an Award-Winning Grant Proposals for Early and Mid-Career Academics

Most researchers based in Nigeria are often unable to compete for research funding due to lack of proposal writing skills. This workshop aims to provide guidelines to early and mid-career academics on how to write an award-winning research grant proposal. The workshop consists of two parts, the first part will discuss the background of the grant proposal. A general overview of grants proposal, how to get started, generating ideas, Qualities of Grant Proposal will be taught. Grant process and its Life cycle, Technical Issues to consider when writing, evaluation criteria, and reasons why proposals fail will all be discussed. The second part of the workshop will discuss the Anatomy of a Grant Application where the general template of grants proposal will be explained with emphasis to Tetfund NRF, IEEE, Ford, and World Band as Case Studies. Furthermore, the participant will learn the taxonomy of each component of the proposal such as an Abstract, Needs Statement, Goals, and Objectives, Methodology, and Work Plan.

To enhance the research grant proposal writing skills for early and mid-career academics in Nigeria.

To learn the skills, techniques, and tools needed to write a strong and award-winning research grant proposal which is the first step towards securing a funding opportunity.

Workshop Benefits: to learn the skills, techniques, and tools needed to write a strong and award-winning research grant proposal which is the first step towards securing a funding opportunity.

Mode of Delivery: Face-to-Face (open lecture sessions)

Target Audience: Early and Mid-career Academics

Duration: 2 hours

Nasir Faruk is a Professor of Telecommunications and Information Technology at Sule Lamido University Kafin Hausa Jigawa State Nigeria. He has a Ph.D. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, a Masters of Science in Mobile & High-Speed Telecommunication Networks with distinction, and a Bachelor of Science in Physics with first-class honors. In 2018, he was awarded the best researcher of the year in the University of Ilorin with a prize of brand vehicle, in the same year, 2018; he was listed among the 100 leading Telecom & ICT personalities in Nigeria by the ATCON. From 2013-to 2022, he attracted 36 different grants from various funding sources. Prof Faruk has served as Technical Program Committee Chair and member of numerous local and international conferences. He has the author/co-author of over 120 scientific publications. He was a fellow of the AFRNIC.

Prof Faruk has been highly active in the Internet policy-making process of AFRNIC, ICANN, IETF, ISOC, and other players in the internet ecosystem. Prof Faruk is currently the Director ICT, Sule Lamido University, Chair IEEE ComSoc, Nigeria, and co-chair of Infrastructure, Access, and Connectivity of ISOC, Nigeria. His area of interest includes Terrestrial Radio Propagation, Spectrum Measurements, and Telemedicine. He has achieved an H index of 19, an i10th index of 38 as of Feb 2022.

Kennedy Chinedu Okafor is a Senior Member of the IEEE, USA; a Certified Systems Engineer, holds a Ph.D. (Energy & Cloud Computing) with accumulated industry experiences in Advanced Cloud Robotics, Analytics & Operational Technologies (DevSecOps). Kennedy has organized and hosted events like IEEE Special Topics Symposiums, IEEE Virtual Event Programs in Africa on Big Data, Green ICT, Power Africa, IEEE NIGERCON, 1st IEEE Mechatronics Conference, MAC-2019, IEEE TEICA2020, IEEE HAC-Skillup2020, Cisco-IEEE Webinar 4.0-2020, IEEE AI & Cybersecurity MasterClasses, ICMEAS-2021, ASIA Webinars, etc.

Kennedy is the founder of Kswitche & Co-founder, IEEE SKillup Hub, Nigeria. In 2010, he executed a major World Bank Project on ICT in Nigeria. Also, he was the lead consultant in the Biometric Data Capture for PHCN in 2011. His team has developed various products in ACS such as COVID-19 Robots, Ventilators, Cloud-based AMI, ERP, IoT Automation, Data-loggers, Micro-grids, Datacenters, FPGA Display Modules, Analytic Energy Tracking Systems, Translators & Robots.

Kennedy has over 150 impact technical publications, reviewed over 280 papers, handled over 285 editorial tasks, (both in Scopus & Web of Science), and has presented papers in both Int’l and local conferences. Kennedy is the Chair, of IEEE Consultants Network, Nigeria & works with the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Nigeria. Kennedy is a visiting senior research fellow, FEDCODTTEN, Nigeria, a Senior Associate with the department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering science, University of Johannesburg, South Africa. He currently collaborates with World Bank Africa Center of Excellence for Sustainable Power and Energy Development (ACE-SPED), Mechatronics and Robotics, University of Nigeria Nsukka, UNN; Cisco Systems NetAcad, IBM Global University Program, Africa, and Autonomous & Intelligent System Laboratory (AIS-Labs), School of Mechatronic Systems Engineering, Simon Fraser University, BC-Canada”. Kennedy is Fellow of African Scientific Institute, USA.