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Grant applications are generally a waste of time, akin to writing a mini-thesis just so you have the opportunity to buy a lottery ticket. Grant awarding is also

Grant applications are generally a waste of time, akin to writing a mini-thesis just so you have the opportunity to buy a lottery ticket. Grant awarding is also incredibly opaque, and generally very biased to the reviewers (ie, corrupt), with random variables playing a part in decision making that have no bearing on the actual capabilities of the grant-writers. Worse, reviewers and grant-makers themselves are generally unqualified to make such grants, and as such, have no ability nor incentive to track the success of grants issued. All in all, if you need money in academia, your best bet is to either be independently wealthy to fund your ideas, or find a few direct personal benefactors who believe in you and your general goals. *Edit -- if you are here in HN, then your ability to do the latter suggestion (find a few personal benefactors) is actually much more within reach than getting funded through a grant -- it is certainly worth your time to explore that option, and in the long-run will provide you more security and freedom to really explore your field and interests.

jonathanstrange 7y ago
As someone who has successfully obtained various grants, I wouldn't say they are a waste of time, but I agree that it's essentially a reviewer lottery among the good to excellent applications. At least that's the case in the humanities where evaluation is more subjective anyway. I've had more or less the same application fail miserably in one call and succeed immediately in another, for instance. The problem with grants is that each one of them has their own evaluation criteria, panels, and overall decision structure, so what works for one type of grant is useless with another. That makes writing them so time consuming.