Quick answer: The most useful grant writing examples are real funded applications, and the best public collection is the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) sample applications page, which publishes full funded applications with their reviewers’ summary statements across research, small business, career development and fellowship awards.

Use them to see structure and tone, then write your own using the funder’s required sections: for NIH, a one-page Specific Aims page followed by a Research Strategy; for NSF, a one-page Project Summary with an Overview, Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts. This page gives annotated, illustrative examples of each core section and shows what reviewers look for in them.

Most graduate students meet grant writing for the first time when applying for a dissertation fellowship, a travel award or a small research grant, and the hardest part is knowing what good looks like. Reading a guide tells you the rules; reading strong examples shows you how successful applicants actually phrase a problem, a gap and a plan. The examples on this page are written for illustration around a fictional project, so you can see each section’s job clearly, and the sources section points you to real funded applications to study alongside them.

Where to find real grant writing examples

• NIAID sample applications. The NIAID sample applications page publishes complete funded applications, shared with the investigators’ permission, together with summary statements showing how reviewers scored and critiqued them. It covers research grants such as R01, R03, R15 and R21, small business grants, and career development and fellowship awards such as K01, K08, K23 and F31. The fellowship examples are especially relevant to doctoral students.
• Your own institution. Research offices and graduate schools often keep libraries of successful internal applications. Ask your supervisor or research development office; colleagues who were funded are often willing to share.
• Funder guidance pages. Funders publish their own required structure, page limits and review criteria. For NIH, the NIH page limits table sets the length of each section; for NSF, the Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide sets the required content of the Project Summary and other sections.

Read examples in your own field and for the same mechanism you are applying to. A large research project grant and a doctoral fellowship ask for different things, and copying the scale of one into the other is a common mistake.

Example 1: a Specific Aims page (NIH style)

For most NIH research and fellowship applications, the Specific Aims section is limited to one page, and it is the page every reviewer reads first and most carefully. A strong one follows a predictable shape: an opening paragraph that states the problem and why it matters, a sentence naming the gap, a statement of the long-term goal and the objective of this application, the central hypothesis, two or three aims with a short rationale and approach for each, and a closing paragraph on expected outcomes and impact.

Illustrative opening paragraph: “Early-career nurses leave hospital practice at high rates in their first two years, and turnover is costly for hospitals and disruptive for patient care. Structured mentoring programmes are widely adopted, but there is little evidence about which components reduce intention to leave, and almost none from hospitals that rely on rotating shift patterns, where mentors and new nurses rarely work the same hours.”

Illustrative gap and objective: “The gap is the absence of evidence on mentoring delivery under rotating shifts. The objective of this application is to identify which mentoring components predict lower intention to leave among new nurses on rotating schedules. Our central hypothesis is that scheduled contact frequency, rather than mentor seniority, is the main driver.”

Illustrative aims: “Aim 1: Describe how mentoring is delivered across rotating-shift units in three hospitals. Aim 2: Test whether contact frequency predicts intention to leave at 12 months, controlling for unit and workload. Aim 3: Identify, through interviews, the barriers mentors and new nurses report to maintaining contact.”

Why it works: each paragraph does one job, the gap is stated in a single sentence, the hypothesis is testable, and each aim is independent enough that the project would still produce useful results if one aim ran into problems.

Example 2: an NSF Project Summary

NSF requires a Project Summary of no more than one page in three parts: an Overview, a statement of Intellectual Merit and a statement of Broader Impacts, which correspond to NSF’s two merit review criteria. Reviewers expect each part to be present and labelled.

Illustrative Overview: “This project will develop and test a low-cost sensor network to measure soil moisture across smallholder farms, and will use the data to model how irrigation timing affects crop yield under variable rainfall.”

Illustrative Intellectual Merit: “The project will produce the first field-scale dataset linking high-frequency soil moisture to yield on farms below two hectares, and will test whether existing irrigation models, developed on large commercial farms, transfer to small plots.”

Illustrative Broader Impacts: “The project will train undergraduate students from partner institutions in sensor design and data analysis, and will share irrigation guidance with farmer cooperatives in an accessible format.”

Why it works: the Overview says what will be done in one sentence; Intellectual Merit says what knowledge will be gained, not just what activities will happen; Broader Impacts names specific people and outcomes rather than general benefits.

Example 3: a significance statement

Whatever the funder, you will need to explain why the work matters. Weak significance statements describe the topic; strong ones describe the consequence of the gap and what changes if it is filled.

Weak (illustrative): “Mentoring is an important topic in nursing and has been widely studied.”

Strong (illustrative): “If hospitals knew which mentoring components reduce early turnover under rotating shifts, they could redesign programmes they already fund, at little extra cost, for a workforce that is currently the hardest to retain.”

Example 4: a budget justification line

Budget justifications are short but closely read, and reviewers want each cost tied to an aim.

Weak (illustrative): “Participant incentives: $2,400.”

Strong (illustrative): “Participant incentives ($2,400): $40 gift cards for 60 interview participants in Aim 3, consistent with the hospitals’ standard rate for a one-hour research interview.”

Example 5: a fellowship training plan paragraph

Fellowship and early-career applications are assessed on the applicant’s development as well as the project. A training plan should name specific skills, how they will be gained and how they connect to the research.

Illustrative paragraph: “To complete Aim 2, I will extend my statistical training to multilevel modelling through a graduate course in the first semester and weekly supervision with my co-sponsor, a biostatistician. To prepare for an independent career, I will present at two national conferences and lead the drafting of a first-author manuscript from Aim 1 by the end of year one.”

Example 6: a data management and sharing paragraph

Many funders now ask how you will manage and share the data your project produces; NIH’s Data Management and Sharing Policy, in effect since January 2023, requires a plan for applications that will generate scientific data, and the NIAID page includes example plans. Reviewers look for specifics: what data, in what format, where they will be deposited, when, and with what protections.

Illustrative paragraph: “De-identified survey data from Aim 2 will be deposited as CSV files with a codebook in the university’s institutional repository within six months of the main publication. Interview transcripts from Aim 3 will not be shared publicly, because participants may be identifiable from their unit and role; a summary of coded themes will be shared instead.”

Why it works: it names each dataset, the repository and the timing, and it explains the one limit on sharing rather than leaving reviewers to guess.

What reviewers look for

Funders publish their review criteria, and every section of your application should help a reviewer score you against them. NSF reviews on Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts. NIH has been simplifying its framework for research project grants, grouping criteria around the importance of the research, its rigor and feasibility, and the expertise and resources available, and it scores on a 1 to 9 scale on which 1 is exceptional. Whatever the funder, reviewers commonly ask four questions:

1. Is the problem important, and is the gap real?
2. Will the approach answer the question, and what happens if something goes wrong?
3. Is this team, or this applicant, the right one to do it?
4. Is the plan feasible in the time and budget requested?

The summary statements on the NIAID page are the best way to see these questions applied: read the reviewers’ comments alongside the application they scored.

How to use examples without copying them

• Study structure, not wording. Note how many sentences each part takes, where the hypothesis appears and how aims are numbered, then write your own text.
• Match the mechanism. Compare your application with examples of the same type and size.
• Check the current rules. Page limits and required sections change; always follow the current funding announcement and guide rather than an older example.
• Get feedback early. Share your aims page with your supervisor and at least one reader outside your field, because reviewers on a panel will not all be specialists.

If you are writing your first funding application during a PhD, the site’s guide to grant proposal writing for PhD funding covers planning and timelines, and the guide to conference travel grants for graduate students covers the short applications most students write first.

Common mistakes in early grant applications

• Opening with a long literature review instead of the problem and the gap; the same problem-gap-question sequence used in a thesis introduction works well here.
• Aims that depend on each other, so the project collapses if Aim 1 fails.
• Activities described as outcomes, such as “we will collect data”, without saying what will be learned.
• Generic broader impacts that could apply to any project.
• Budget items with no link to the aims.
• Exceeding page limits or ignoring required headings, which can lead to an application being returned without review.

For a related guide, see writing recommendations in a dissertation.

Where Tesify fits

A funded dissertation still has to be written. Start structuring your thesis in Tesify. It helps you structure and organize your thesis chapters around the aims you set out in your proposal, and 9,000+ students have written 15,000+ chapters with Tesify. Every word stays 100% written by you.

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

Where can I find examples of funded grant applications?

NIAID publishes full funded applications with reviewers’ summary statements on its sample applications page, covering research, small business, career development and fellowship awards. Your institution’s research office may also hold successful internal examples.

How long is an NIH Specific Aims page?

For most NIH research and fellowship applications the Specific Aims section is limited to one page. Check the page limits table and your funding announcement for the mechanism you are applying to.

What are the sections of an NSF Project Summary?

An NSF Project Summary has three parts, an Overview, Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts, and may not exceed one page.

Can I copy wording from a funded grant example?

No. Use examples to learn structure and tone, then write your own text. Copying wording from another application is plagiarism and reviewers in a small field may recognise it.

How many aims should a grant application have?

Two or three aims is typical for many research and fellowship applications, but the right number depends on the mechanism, budget and duration. Each aim should produce useful results on its own.

What makes a strong significance statement?

A strong significance statement explains the consequence of the gap in knowledge and what would change if it were filled, rather than simply saying the topic is important.

What do grant reviewers look for first?

Reviewers usually start with the aims or summary page and ask whether the problem matters, whether the gap is real, whether the approach will work and whether the applicant can deliver it.

Are grant writing examples useful for dissertation proposals?

Yes. A dissertation proposal needs the same logic of problem, gap, aims and feasible methods, so studying strong aims pages and summaries can sharpen your proposal even if you are not applying for funding.