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Research Grant Writing Assistant

Helps draft and review federal research grant proposals (NSF, NIH, DOE, DARPA, NSTC) against agency rules.

Source Download skill
Repository
K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills
Stars
55,780
Licence
MIT
Files
15 files

What it does

Once installed, the agent follows agency-specific guidance for NSF, NIH, DOE, DARPA and Taiwan's NSTC when helping you write or critique a research funding proposal. It works through a checklist: confirm the governing funding notice and deadline, map each requirement to where it appears in your draft, and flag gaps. It also offers templates for specific aims, project summaries and budget justifications, and review criteria for critiquing drafts. It is explicit that templates are worksheets, not official forms, and that it must not invent data, citations or approvals.

Great for

  • Early-career researchers preparing their first NSF or NIH proposal
  • Research office staff building a compliance matrix for a submission
  • PIs revising a draft after reviewer comments in a resubmission

Skip it if

  • Generating a full proposal from scratch: NIH policy excludes applications substantially developed by AI, so the science and writing must stay the applicant's own.
  • Relying on archived or outdated solicitations: the skill itself warns that old calls do not establish current funding or rules, and its guidance is marked as reviewed in 2026.
  • Final submission compliance without checking official documents: the skill notes Markdown text does not establish page limits, so exported files must be inspected.

Try asking

  • “Build a requirement-to-draft gap matrix for my NSF CAREER proposal using the attached solicitation.”
  • “Critique my NIH Specific Aims page against the review criteria and suggest where it is unclear.”
  • “Draft a budget justification outline for a DOE project with two institutions, using the template.”
  • “Check my resubmission response plan against the NIH resubmission rules.”
Step-by-step guide: how to use Research Grant Writing AssistantInstall, first run, examples, tips and FAQs

Install in 3 steps

  1. 1

    Download the skill

    The ZIP contains the 15 original files, the MIT licence and an attribution note.

    research-grants.zip
  2. 2

    Add it to your agent

    Claude Code (all projects)

    mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && unzip research-grants.zip -d ~/.claude/skills/

    Claude Code / Agent SDK (this project only)

    mkdir -p .claude/skills && unzip research-grants.zip -d .claude/skills/

    Claude apps (web/desktop): Settings → Capabilities → Skills → Upload skill, and choose the ZIP.

  3. 3

    Ask for the task

    No special command needed — the agent reads the skill's description and loads it when your request matches. Try one of the prompts above.

Get better results

  • Provide the official solicitation and current notices yourself, with retrieval dates, so the agent checks against primary sources rather than memory.
  • Write the substance of your science yourself and use the agent for structure, consistency checks and critique, especially for NIH applications.
  • Do not paste unpublished sensitive details into the optional figure generator, since prompts go to OpenRouter, a third-party service.

What's inside

  • assets/budget_justification_template.md
  • assets/nih_specific_aims_template.md
  • assets/nsf_project_summary_template.md
  • references/broader_impacts.md
  • references/core_components.md
  • references/darpa_guidelines.md
  • references/doe_guidelines.md
  • references/nih_guidelines.md
  • references/nsf_guidelines.md
  • references/nstc_guidelines.md
  • references/proposal_types_and_resubmission.md
  • references/README.md
  • references/review_criteria.md
  • references/specific_aims_guide.md
  • SKILL.md

Redistributed unmodified from K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills under the MIT licence. The assessment was drafted with AI from the skill's files on 2026-10-29. Skills can instruct your agent to run code — read SKILL.md and any scripts before installing.