Grants are not a strategy – rethinking how research organizations pursue funding

In this article:

Grants are a tool, not a strategy
The common trap: from one grant to another
Step one: take a step back before moving forward
Understanding the funding landscape before entering it
Structured screening instead of gut feeling
Acquiring funding with purpose
No more grant chasing
Our expert

Grants are a tool, not a strategy

This article reflects on a recurring pattern we see across research-performing organizations and outlines how a more structured, impact-driven approach to funding can replace reactive grant chasing, all without losing momentum or opportunity.

The common trap: from one grant to another

The pattern is familiar: A call looks interesting -> A researcher or department head asks “can we apply for this?” -> a proposal team is assembled -> consultants are brought in -> everyone pushes hard until the deadline. And then the cycle repeats. What is often missing is a prior, shared conversation around some fundamental questions:

• What are we actually trying to achieve as an organization or department?
• Over what time horizon?
• In which thematic or technological focus areas?
• With which people, capacities, and partnerships?
• And with what level of financial and organizational risk?

Without these answers, grant applications become isolated tactical decisions. Even successful projects may sit awkwardly within the broader portfolio: difficult to sustain, difficult to scale, and difficult to connect to the next step. Ironically, this approach is exhausting and inefficient: time, budget, and consultancy support are spent without a clear sense of return on strategic objectives. Recognizing this pattern is the turning point. The moment organizations stop asking “can we apply?” and start asking “should we apply?” is where reactive grant chasing can begin to transform into intentional, strategic choice.

Step one: take a step back before moving forward

When clients approach us with a list of “interesting grants,” our first response is increasingly: let’s pause and zoom out. Before deciding which grant to pursue, it is far more powerful to clarify the:

• strategic ambitions (scientific, societal, commercial);
• timeframes (short-term wins vs. long-term positioning);
• focus areas where excellence or differentiation is realistic;
• available internal capacity (people, data, infrastructure);
• budget available for external consultancy support.

This is where innovation consultancy comes into play, not as abstract strategy work, but as a diagnostic exercise. Together with our clients, we:

• map existing projects, expertise, and assets;
• assess readiness levels (technical, societal, commercial and regulatory readiness);
• explore strengths, gaps, and dependencies through SWOT-style analyses;
• interview key researchers, support staff, and leadership;
• facilitate workshops to align priorities across silos.

The goal is not to produce a glossy strategy document. The goal is to create shared clarity: where funding really adds value, and where it doesn’t, so that limited resources, from researchers’ time and research support capacity to consultancy fees, are deliberately invested in the most promising proposals that genuinely advance the organization’s long-term ambitions.

Understanding the funding landscape before entering it

A strategy only makes sense in context. Once internal ambitions and capacities are clear, the next step is to position them against the external funding landscape. Doing this well requires more than experience and intuition, it requires structured insight into how funding markets actually behave.

This is where digital solutions and data-driven intelligence (such as PNOs’ Weesbee or Innovation Pulse) play an increasingly important role in our work. By combining our consultancy expertise with internal databases, funding intelligence tools, and systematic analyses of past and current calls, we help organizations answer questions such as:

• How competitive is this field in practice, not just on paper?
• Which topics attract many applicants, and which are underexplored?
• How evaluation priorities have evolved over time?
• Where similar organizations have been successful, or consistently unsuccessful?
• Which funding instruments align with your maturity, scale, and ambition?

Rather than treating each call as a one-off opportunity, we can use digital insights to identify patterns, trends, and strategic entry points across funding programmes at national and European level. This allows us to move beyond anecdotal advice and support evidence-informed decisions about:

• whether an idea is worth developing further;
• where success probabilities justify the investment of time and consultancy support;
• how a proposal can be positioned more convincingly within the broader funding landscape.

In practice, we often capture these considerations in structured frameworks such as the Funding Model Canvas, which helps teams explicitly weigh ambition, feasibility, risk, and expected return before committing scarce researcher time and proposal support to a specific funding route.

Structured screening instead of gut feeling

Even with a clear strategy, ideas will keep coming, and that is a good thing. What makes the difference is how those ideas are evaluated. Rather than deciding case by case under deadline pressure, organizations can benefit from setting up a structured screening or prioritization mechanism, such as an internal committee or staged decision process.
Here, PNO can support by:

• designing screening criteria aligned with the agreed strategy;
• performing early scoping and viability checks on short concept notes or outlines;
• stress-testing ideas against competitiveness, fit, and resource requirements;
• estimating effort versus expected impact to inform internal go/no-go decisions.

This creates a transparent basis for deciding:

• which ideas deserve full proposal development;
• where internal resources should be protected;
• when external consultancy support is justified.

Crucially, it shifts decision-making from enthusiasm-driven to strategy-driven.

Acquiring funding with purpose

Only then does it make sense to move into full grant acquisition. At this stage, proposal development is no longer about “winning a grant at all costs,” but about securing funding that:

• advances defined strategic objectives;
• strengthens long-term capabilities;
• builds meaningful partnerships;
• creates options for what comes next.

Because expectations, roles, and ambitions are clear upfront, proposal development becomes more focused, and often more successful.

No more grant chasing

Moving from reactive grant applications to structured funding planning does not mean slowing down innovation. It means investing effort where it has the highest long-term return. At PNO, we increasingly see our role not as “the grant consultant you call when a deadline appears,” but as a strategic innovation partner across the full cycle:

• Providing innovation consultancy to clarify direction.
• Understanding and navigating the funding landscape.
• Acquiring public funding with purpose.
• Enabling implementation and sustainable follow-up.

When grants serve a strategy, rather than replace it, funding becomes a powerful enabler of impact, not a source of chaos. If this resonates, we are always happy to explore how a more strategic, evidence-informed approach to funding can support your organization’s ambitions. Feel free to contact us by phone (+31(0)88 838 13 81) or by sending us a message.

Our expert

Simona Čaputová is consultant at PNO Life Sciences & Health.