> The success of a grant proposal shouldn’t hinge on whether the research is driven by a hypothesis, especially in the physical sciences. You're looking at it

> The success of a grant proposal shouldn’t hinge on whether the research is driven by a hypothesis, especially in the physical sciences. You're looking at it the wrong way. If one call for proposal (meaning availability to fund only one project) receives a hundred proposals, then the acceptance rate is going to be 1% no matter what. Requirements like hypothesis inclusion are just ways to split the weed out work into two phases, e.g., eliminate 50 of the 100 proposals because they don't have hypothesis, and then eliminate 49 out of the remaining 50 after more careful reading. If you don't have the hypothesis requirement, that only means 99 out of 100 are eliminated after full reading. And what do you think the likelihood is going to be that the reviewers would accept your hypothesis-free proposal over dozens others that have one (all other things considered equal)? The problem is lack of funding (or alternatively, too many researchers and not enough research work to go around, depending on how you look at it; Masters degree is the new Bachelors degree, PhD is the new Masters, etc, etc). What you're focusing on are marginal issues.