Scientific Dutchman

Op zondag 12 november is er een landelijke klimaatmars in Amsterdam. Een bont gezelschap van organisaties die soms verder niet veel gemeenschappelijk hebben, vragen aandacht voor klimaatverandering en voor een rechtvaardige verdeling van de lasten die het stoppen ervan met zich mee zal brengen.

Waarom zo’n klimaatmars, waarom zoveel verstorende acties? Een belangrijke reden die een organisatie als Extinction Rebellion aanvoert voor hun acties is dat het niet zozeer vijf voor twaalf is, maar eerder vijf seconden voor twaalf. Of zelfs vijf over twaalf.

Hoewel ik het op veel punten niet echt eens ben met XR hebben ze hier toch wel enig gelijk. Daarom heb ik eens een overzicht gemaakt van recent klimaatnieuws dat ik vond op wetenschappelijke fora. Dit is zeker geen uitputtend overzicht, ik heb dit nieuws van een aantal sites met wetenschapsnieuws waarvoor ik een account heb, en van een groep ‘scientists who do climate’ op X. Ik ben tot maximaal 30 oktober teruggegaan voor de sites, en een klein stukje op X. De berichten zijn onderverdeeld in ‘slecht nieuws’ en ‘goed nieuws’.

As a scientist, you need funding. These days, most funding has to come from external sources, such as national funding agencies, the European Union or funding organizations aimed at specific topics, like the Dutch Kidney Foundation (Nierstichting Nederland).

To get funding, you will have to write a proposal outlining your plans, preferably supported by some pilot evidence. However, a good plan and some good preliminary results are often not enough. Most funding programs are heavily oversubscribed, so you have to stand out in the crowd – not only by good science but also by a good presentation.

Your proposal should be convincing and persuasive. Convincing means that you present your ideas and preliminary data in a clear manner. You can’t just list all your ideas and accomplishments, you need to present them in a story. That may sound odd to a scientist, but we’re not talking fiction here, nor a sales pitch, but a presentation that follows a clear storyline that allows the reader to follow your reasoning and see where you want to go.

That’s where editorial support comes in. As a science writer, I have ample experience in getting to the heart of your project and making sure the ‘story’ of your proposal is clear. Editing is not (just) about dotting i’s and crossing t’s, it is also about presenting your message as clearly as possible.

For a specialist in any field, the danger is always to skip steps in an explanation. As a non-specialist, I’m bound to notice those. In my short lecture ‘The Art of Scientific Storytelling’ I can take you through this process. And I can also go through your funding proposal and point out ways to make it more clear and more persuasive.

Feel free to contact me about editorial support.
If you want to read up on this topic, I recommend Funding Your Career in Science by Ritsert C. Jansen

As 2022 draws to a close, it’s interesting to look back. The ‘offices’ of Scientific Dutchman (i.e. my home) relocated from Roden to Kampen. This year, I continued to write for the Nederlands Dagblad newspaper (some seven short science news stories per week) and the website geloofenwetenschap.nl (three news items per month). These two were exclusively in Dutch. I also wrote stories for a number of other clients, produced some SEO web texts for a company selling analytical equipment (all in English), gave a talk on developments in reproductive technology for a student society and did some editing for grant applications.

Are you working on a grant proposal at the moment, or writing other research-related texts? During the month of February, I am offering free editing on 15 abstracts.

I have been editing dozens of research proposals since 2011, written to different funding agencies, mainly for University of Groningen scholars. I would like to extend my client network (which already includes grant proposals Belgium, Germany and the US), so that’s why I am offering this ‘free trial’.