Agent skill · research science · borghei
grants
Grant writing and proposal architecture: funder fit, proposal structure, budget design, and success-factor scoring. Use when writing a grant proposal, evaluating funder fit, auditing a draft for competitiveness, or planning a budget.
Why this skill is useful
Adds 3 executable scripts for scoring funder fit, validating proposal structure, and auditing budget realism that are not commonly known.
What it needs
Requires python3 installed locally. About 4k tokens when loaded. Last updated 2026-07-21. 462 stars on the source repository.
What this skill does
Grant Writing & Proposal Architecture A skill for crafting competitive grant proposals across funder types: government (NIH, NSF, DOE, ARPA), foundation, corporate, philanthropic, and SBIR / STTR. Focuses on the architecture of a winning proposal: fit, structure, narrative, budget — not boilerplate templating. When to use this skill Evaluating funder fit before investing weeks in a proposal Designing the proposal structure for a specific funder Writing or auditing the narrative for competitiveness Designing a realistic, defensible budget Pre-submission proposal review for common failure modes Building a grants strategy (which to apply to over the year) Inputs the advisor expects The funder name + specific program / RFP The research / project idea (problem, approach, outcomes) Team composition (PI, co-investigators, key personnel) Institutional / org context Past funding history Budget envelope (or constraint) Submission deadline Clarify First Before generating the proposal, confirm these inputs. If any is unknown or vague, ASK — do not assume: [ ] Funder + specific program / RFP — sets the mental model (NIH 5-criteria vs NSF merit+impact vs foundation mission fit); drives structure and narrative [ ] Project idea (problem, approach, outcomes) — drives the significance/innovation narrative and the Heilmeier answers [ ] Budget envelope — drives budget design and whether scope matches the funder's typical award size [ ] Team composition (PI, key personnel) — drives the investigator/environment fit dimension Stop rule: ask only the 2-3 that most change the output. If the user says "just draft it," proceed and list your assumptions at the top of the artifact. Workflows Workflow 1 — Score funder fit before committing 1. Capture funder, program, project idea, team strengths. 2. Run funderfitscorer.py to grade fit on 7 dimensions. 3. If fit < 65, look for better-aligned funder; don't waste 4 weeks. Workflow 2 — Validate proposal structure against funder expectations 1. …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills borghei/grants