The Grant A. Harris Award is a little different than many grants. The award is for students doing research in the field of environmental science that just need to measure a couple more variables to make a good project great.  This is pretty broad and we’ve supported everything from classic hydrology research, to irrigation management, ecophys, urban ecology, and much much more.  The things we look for when reviewing proposals are novelty, potential impact on the field of research, and chance to succeed.  It is a blind review, and the final review committee is made up of professors emeriti and adjunct faculty.

Strategies to think about

You only have three pages so you need to stay on point.  The proposals that get awarded have a few things in common:

• Highlight the novelty of your research.  If you are doing something new and cool, make sure that comes through in the proposal.
• Address the impact that your research will have on your field, especially if you are filling in a gap in knowledge.
• Present two or three hypotheses that are central to your research and relate how the METER instruments that you are requesting will help you test those.
• Give enough background information in your introduction to give context to your research but do not go overboard here.  This is probably the trickiest balance to strike in a short proposal like this.
• Your references do not count toward the three page proposal.  It’s important to cite the previous research on which your work is built, but it doesn’t count as the proposal content.

Good luck!  We look forward to reading your proposal.