A Practical Guide to Writing Computer Science Research Proposals

Everything you wanted to know about types of proposals, where to find funding opportunities, and what goes into a proposal—but were afraid to ask.

In a previous post, I offered some thoughts on how to write a winning research proposal. I aimed to gear that advice as much towards graduate students as faculty members, since there are many shared aspects to crafting a narrative for a research proposal and (say) a graduate fellowship application.

In this post, I offer some tips about the logistics of proposal writing in the field of computer science. The audience of this writeup is senior graduate students who are considering a career in academia, junior faculty members, and others who are simply looking for tips on writing research proposals. I’ll cover the following logistics:

• Different types of research proposals. Many organizations offer funding opportunities. Your research proposal will take a different form depending on the organization you are applying for funding from. Depending on the type of project you aim to do, your timeline, and the balance between “basic research”, software development, outreach, and other activities, you may choose to apply to different organizations for…