The career path in the academic world is tough. After a demanding undergraduate period, you will enter graduate school and another period of at least four years of hard work lies ahead. After acquiring your PhD you will have to work as a postdoc for a number of years.

In all those years other people tell you what to do or what to study. Your own input, as far as research subject goes, is marginal. For the majority of young scientists the final goal is to become a principal Investigator themselves, or at least to work in a group where their influence on the research direction is substantial.

When you have almost finished your PhD or just started your postdoc period, the future of being a group leader seems far away. You have other problems on your mind. Nevertheless there is question that you should ask yourself over and over again. The earlier you start with considering this question the better. Here is the question:

What research subject would you choose, and what equipment would you buy if you would get five million dollars?

Writing grant proposals is a fact of live for every group leader. This writing can be quite time consuming. Your chance of success depends on a number of factors. The factor I want to discuss here is the originality and the detail of the proposal .

New idea
Pursuing a new idea is what makes the life of a scientist fascinating and challenging. But also demanding. Just continuing one’s research on old ideas is much easier. But a new idea is very difficult to come by.  Continuation of old stuff is much easier. Grant organizations want new ideas. Supporting continuation is in our society never appreciated. ( Unless it is Scottish whisky.)  So even when you are just going to do the same research you have to package it in the form of a new idea.