The Directorate of Research Innovation and Consultancy (DRIC) has organised a seminar on grant proposal writing.

It was on the theme " Structure and essentials of a winnable grant proposal ".

Speaking at the programme, Director of DRIC, Prof. David Doku, said good proposal was a precondition to attract grant.

Director of DRIC, Prof. David Doku

"No grant comes through without a proposal. To win a grant, you must write a good proposal", he added.

Prof. Doku noted that grant proposal was needed because " it requires funding, helps plan the proposed research and help to organise research in a logical, focused and effective way."

Prof. Doku singled out project title and acronym, cover letter, executive summary, need statement, goals and objectives and methodology as major components of a grant proposal.

He also mentioned that " a need statement is a compelling description of the need or problem to be addressed by the applicant.

" In a need statement, your organisation should have the mandate to address the need; the need statement should address the call, and many more," he continued.

He advised that the need statement should be sweet, concise and simple and easily digestible.

In the process of writing a need strategy, Prof. Doku mentioned that “we state clearly what the need is, we use clear and credible statistics to support our argument, give clear sense of urgency and the need statement should be persuasive without being wordy".

He added that a good need statement gives the viewer the needed information to understand the objectives and approaches in the proposal, builds up towards answering a specific question that is unknown, discuss relevant data on the subject, etc.

Prof. Doku emphasised that a research plan must be so detailed that an independent researcher could carry out the study based on the plan.

 He added that to write a good proposal, one must read the call very well.