A Strong Impact Section is Key to a Successful Grant Application | Modis

A Strong Impact Section is Key to a Successful Grant Application

Barbara Möller Posted 18 January 2021

Could your company in the Life Sciences health sector do with additional cash sources to develop innovative products and services? Do you consider applying for a regional, national, or European grant of up to several million euros? Then be aware that a strong impact section of your project proposal is essential to receive the grant.

During the writing process of industrial grant proposals, companies rightly focus their attention to the work programme to make sure that the project is innovative and meets all call objectives. On the contrary, call criteria for the impact section are often overlooked until close before the deadline. This often results in major last-minute adjustments to the project and suboptimal applications that are less likely to be funded. Sometimes, a successful submission of the grant application is not feasible for this reason, and the project is put on hold.

But why is the impact section of grant proposals so important? This is because funding organisations provide grants to achieve a specific impact on the health sector and the society at large. Therefore, they look very carefully if your project has the potential to contribute to their objectives. During evaluation, the impact section is often weighted more heavily than the scientific part of your project proposal. Consequently, an excellent scientific project with a poor impact section has little chances to be funded.

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What can you do to improve the impact section of your grant proposal?

  1. Start with thinking about the requested impact of the grant call and design your project accordingly. Is the project strategically of high importance for the company? Does the project boost the employment and investments in your company significantly? In case of a consortium, make sure that, from the start, each industry partner has a significant return on investment. It can be a game-stopper if this is not the case.
  2. Secondly, envision the users –customers or other companies, European or globally - that will buy your product or service. Why would they buy your innovation instead of the competitors’ products or services? What are the obstacles for your users to buy your product? You may want to perform a market analysis to convince the grant agency how your innovation can disrupt or create a new market.
  3. Finally, make sure that your commercialisation plan is realistic and convincing. Think about your intellectual property strategy and perform an initial analysis to ensure freedom to operate. In case of a consortium, discuss how to divide the intellectual property rights from the start of the development, as it can be a lengthy process to legally finalise this. Moreover, identify key stakeholders that can help you to introduce your product to the market.

Do you plan to write a grant proposal and need help to shape the impact section of your grant application? With our strong expertise in grant writing for regional and European grant schemes for life science and biotech organisations, our grant consultancy team at Modis Life Sciences can help you to submit a high-quality grant application. Modis Life Sciences’ vast experience in project and grant management – including sustainability services, stakeholder engagement and alignment services - ensures that we have a clear view on what is feasible in the valorisation period of your project. Contact Sofie Meerschaut, senior grant consultant at Modis, for further information.

Barbara Möller,
Grant Consultant Life Sciences

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