Grant Writing and the Hidden Curriculum: Mentoring and Collaborating Across Disciplines

Submitting grant proposals is becoming an increasingly common expectation-and, in some cases, a requirement-in the discipline of political science as well as other social sciences and the humanities. However, writing a grant with a good chance of success at getting funded is not part of standard mentorship or pedagogy in our discipline. It is a part of the hidden curriculum, where grant-writing skills often are taught informally in working with a principal investigator. This article describes the process and structure of writing a grant to provide a roadmap for scholars to follow in submitting externally funded projects. The article describes an Institutional Review Board-approved survey about mentorship and grant writing and discusses the importance of socialization, professionalization, and administration in supporting scholars in writing and obtaining grants.