Hello everyone ka!
Another activity I did last week was to moderate a session for Fulbright Thailand on 'grant/essay writing', in which about 50 International Relations Officers (IROs)/Ajarns attended.
I had two guests with me, one from OHEC, and the other is Former Senior Education Specialist from the World Bank ka. Both have had extensive direct experiences in reviewing grants and personally having been through essay writing for scholarships.
I've drawn the following from the sessions ka:
Grant proposals
1. Have passion to start with so we can work on it attentively.
2. Know what the funding agencies look for and what our own universities need so both have the common focuses to match.
3. Write in simple and concise/to-the-point language.
4. Since IROs aren't able to know the technical issues as much as ajarns/faculties, a working group is useful for IROs to help coordinate and gain valuable inputs to complete a good grant proposal. Peer review can also be useful as outsiders' perspectives to improve the proposals.
At the World Bank, she led by having a working group to make sure all relevant issues from different departments (procurement, finance, etc.) were discussed and well-thought out to the extent that she herself would be able to defend the proposal for funding from her bosses.
At the OHEC level when it had cooperation with the EU, OHEC representatives sat down to discuss with the EU side to ensure that the project reflected what OHEC wanted to stress and what mutual benefits would be seen.
I liked it when our WB guest emphasized that IROs must take pride in their proposals, knowing that their work would be contributive to their universities.
Essay Writing for Scholarship
In fact, the basic principles about passion and use of concise language are the same.
It is important that the substance must stand out to reflect one's intention to get a scholarship. Even so, he/she should review carefully not to make many grammatical errors or typos.
The participants were able to have some hands-on experiences discussing proposals Fulbright wrote and received.
It sounded that what was shared was quite simple but many said they weren't that aware and a few said they wished to change the university culture on grant writing and to share these principles with their faculty and students.
Two observations ka:
1. IROs could tend to get stuck with formats and timeline over the objectives and creativity of the project so this could be another dimension Fulbright may think of future activities to help lessen such a practice.
2. IROs have more important roles than they themselves and their universities realize....if efficient, they are the best bridge for the universities to gain more and stronger partnerships as well as networking to be responsive to the university missions and visions. They also have loads of tacit knowledge to offer, when managed properly and systematically!
Continuous training and capacity building for this group can't be overlooked, nor should they be treated like general facilities 'running errands' like passport and visa or general correspondence.
I didn't stay on for the last workshop but heard that it went well when all got to actually learn to write and get more aware of etiquette and discuss among themselves how to improve it.
Have a nice week ka.
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