Following up on recommendations from research into experiences with grant applications

ZonMw continuously works on improving its grant application process. During this process, we believe it is important to listen to the experiences and wishes of our applicants. ZonMw therefore commissioned a survey among 3000 grant applicants in 2022. In general, respondents experienced the application process as positive. Several concerns have also been brought to the fore that ZonMw will actively tackle during the course of 2023.

Key outcomes

Applicants are mostly positive about their experiences with submitting a grant application to ZonMw. For example, they are very satisfied about how ZonMw acts with integrity and the meticulousness and clarity of the entire application process.

However, there are concerns as well. Due to the meticulousness of the process, applying for a grant can sometimes be very time-consuming. For example, submitting the project idea is at times experienced to be almost as time-consuming as submitting a full proposal. In addition, the moments when ZonMw requests certain information was listed as a concern (preferably not just before holiday periods).

Respondents experience the assessment of proposals as thorough and, at the same time, not fully transparent for the applicant. For example, respondents would like to see more transparency about who assesses the proposal. They would also like more insight into how the assessment of referees and the selection committee relate to each other.

The process of contacting ZonMw is considered very convenient. Employees help applicants in finding solutions and provide knowledgeable answers to questions. At the same time, finding the right contact details is sometimes difficult and it could be made easier to reach contact persons during holidays.

ZonMw organises information meetings about the submission of a proposal. These are appreciated by applicants, who would like these to be held more often and also earlier in the process. In addition, the survey revealed a need for more general information about how you can best submit a proposal.
Respondents are very satisfied with the submission of a grant proposal via Mijn ZonMw and would like to see ZonMw switching to a single system for grant
  submissions.

A complete overview of the outcomes can be found in the final report at the end of this news item.

Next steps

Director of ZonMw, Véronique Timmerhuis: ‘Besides the points for improvements that emerge from this survey, the responses also contain a lot of positive feedback. ZonMw is pleased with the different kinds of feedback and will use it to its advantage. Recommendations from the report have led to several points for improvement being identified that we will work on as an organisation. For example, we aim to improve our website and MijnZonMw and more closely examine various elements of our grant application process that were commented on. On behalf of ZonMw, I would like to thank everybody who took part in this survey.’

Survey

Management consultancy firm TwynstraGudde carried out the survey on behalf of ZonMw. They sent a questionnaire to more than 3000 main applicants who submitted a grant application in 2021. A total of 347 main applicants fully completed the questionnaire. In addition to this, four panel discussions were held to assess and enrich the outcomes from the questionnaires. A total of 29 respondents took part in these panels.

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