Grantwriting and the Hidden Curriculum

Submitting grant proposals is becoming an increasingly common expectation - and in some cases, a requirement - in the discipline of political science, or other social sciences and the humanities. However, writing a grant with a good chance of success at getting funded is not part of standard mentorship or pedagogy in our discipline. It is a part of the hidden curriculum, where grant-writing skills are often taught informally in working with a PI (principal investigator). In this paper, we describe the process and structure of writing a grant to provide a roadmap for scholars to follow in submitting externally-funded projects. The structure of the paper is as follows: we describe an IRB-approved survey about mentorship and grant-writing; and we discuss the importance of socialization, professionalization, and administration in supporting scholars in writing and getting grants.