research-grants
by K-Dense-AIThe research-grants skill helps turn a rough research idea into a grant-ready proposal for NSF, NIH, DOE, DARPA, or Taiwan NSTC. It supports sponsor fit, compliant structure, budget justification, review-criteria framing, and section drafting for principal investigators, postdocs, and technical writers.
This skill scores 84/100, which means it is a solid directory listing candidate: users can reasonably expect real grant-writing workflow support, not a placeholder. The repository provides agency-specific guidance and templates that should reduce guesswork for agents working on NSF, NIH, DOE, DARPA, and NSTC proposals, though users should still verify exact solicitation requirements.
- Strong agency targeting in the frontmatter and overview, covering NSF, NIH, DOE, DARPA, and Taiwan NSTC with proposal-specific tasks like budgets, aims, broader impacts, and compliance.
- Substantial operational content: a large SKILL.md body, 15 H2s/41 H3s, plus templates and references for NIH specific aims, NSF project summaries, and budget justification.
- Supporting artifacts improve execution: 2 scripts, 8 reference files, and 3 asset templates give agents reusable structure instead of relying on generic prompting.
- No install command is present in SKILL.md, so setup and activation steps are not fully explicit for directory users.
- The excerpt shows broad multi-agency coverage; users targeting a single program may still need to adapt details to the latest solicitation and institutional rules.
Overview of research-grants skill
The research-grants skill helps you turn a rough research idea into a grant-ready proposal for NSF, NIH, DOE, DARPA, or Taiwan NSTC. It is most useful when you need more than a generic prompt: you need agency-fit, compliant structure, and the right balance of significance, innovation, feasibility, and impact.
This research-grants skill is a good fit for principal investigators, postdocs, technical writers, and lab staff who already have a project idea but need help shaping it for a specific sponsor. It is especially useful when the main risk is not writing quality alone, but missing agency expectations such as NSF Broader Impacts, NIH Specific Aims, DOE alignment, or DARPA’s high-risk/high-reward framing.
What this skill is best at
It is strongest for proposal planning, section drafting, budget justification, and agency-specific narrative control. The repository includes templates and reference notes that help you write to review criteria instead of writing a one-size-fits-all research summary.
Where it adds real value
The main gain is decision quality: it helps you see whether your idea fits the sponsor before you spend time polishing prose. That matters for research-grants work because weak agency fit, unclear aims, or vague impact claims often kill proposals before style issues do.
When it is a poor fit
If you only need a short funding-email draft, a plain prompt may be enough. Use this skill when you need a more structured research-grants guide, when compliance matters, or when the proposal must be mapped to a specific funder’s language and review logic.
How to Use research-grants skill
Install and point it at the right source files
Use the research-grants install command from the repo or directory flow:
npx skills add K-Dense-AI/claude-scientific-skills --skill research-grants
Then read SKILL.md first, followed by assets/, references/, and any scripts that support figures or schematic generation. For this repo, the most useful starting files are assets/nih_specific_aims_template.md, assets/nsf_project_summary_template.md, assets/budget_justification_template.md, and the agency references in references/.
Give the skill a complete funding brief
Strong input is not “write me a grant.” It is a compact brief with the agency, program, topic, stage, deadline, and constraints. For example: “Draft an NSF project summary for a 3-year AI-for-education proposal with a student training component, 1-page limit, and a broader impacts emphasis on open educational resources.”
For research-grants usage, include:
- sponsor and program name
- project goal and specific aims
- target audience or beneficiaries
- budget range and duration
- compliance limits, page limits, and required sections
- known methods, datasets, or preliminary results
Read the repo in the order that helps writing
Start with the agency guide that matches your target sponsor, then move to the section template you need. If you are writing NIH, read references/nih_guidelines.md and assets/nih_specific_aims_template.md. If you are writing NSF, use references/nsf_guidelines.md and assets/nsf_project_summary_template.md. For DARPA or DOE, the guidance files help you tune tone and risk framing.
Convert a vague idea into a usable prompt
A weak prompt asks for “help with grant writing.” A better prompt gives the writing job and review standard: “Rewrite these aims so they are testable, aligned to NIH significance, and feasible in 3 years. Keep the language suitable for a Specific Aims page and avoid overclaiming.” That style of prompt gets better research-grants usage because it tells the skill what success looks like.
research-grants skill FAQ
Is research-grants only for experienced grant writers?
No. It can help beginners, but you need enough project detail to make the output specific. If you are new, use the templates and agency notes first so the skill can draft to a real sponsor format instead of inventing structure.
How is this different from a normal prompt?
A normal prompt may produce decent prose. The research-grants skill is more useful when you need sponsor-specific structure, compliance cues, and strategic framing that matches how reviewers score proposals. That is the difference between generic writing help and a research-grants skill built for submission-oriented work.
Does it support technical writing teams?
Yes, especially for research-grants for Technical Writing workflows where one person drafts science and another polishes sponsor language. It is useful for turning subject-matter notes into a clearer proposal narrative, but it works best when the user supplies the factual research content and the target agency.
When should I not use it?
Do not use it if you lack a defined sponsor, project scope, or evidence base. It is also not a substitute for legal, institutional, or sponsored-research office review. If you already have a nearly finished proposal and only need copyediting, a lighter editing pass may be enough.
How to Improve research-grants skill
Start with the review criteria, not the topic
The best way to improve research-grants output is to tell the skill what reviewers must believe. For NIH, that may be significance plus feasibility; for NSF, intellectual merit plus broader impacts; for DARPA, a credible leap in capability. This makes the proposal sharper because the draft is built around evaluation, not just description.
Provide stronger inputs for stronger claims
Weak input: “My lab studies battery materials.”
Stronger input: “We are proposing a 2-year DOE BES project to test whether defect engineering improves ionic conductivity in solid electrolytes, with preliminary X data and a clear failure mode.” The second version gives the skill enough substance to draft specific aims, milestones, and risk language.
Fix the common failure modes early
The most common problems are vague aims, unrealistic timelines, missing budget logic, and mismatch between sponsor and story. If the first draft feels too broad, ask for a tighter version that names the unknown, the method, the measurable outcome, and the fallback path. That usually improves research-grants usage more than asking for “better writing.”
Iterate section by section
Use the first pass to shape the structure, then refine one section at a time: Specific Aims, Project Summary, Broader Impacts, budget justification, or transition plan. For research-grants for Technical Writing workflows, this section-based revision is the fastest way to improve clarity without rewriting the whole proposal.