PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: How to balance multiple research projects with applying for funding

This post is part of the series PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: posts written for the Dutch academic career network AcademicTransfer, your go-to resource for all research positions in the Netherlands.

These posts are sponsored by AcademicTransfer, and tailored to those of you interested in pursuing a research position in the Netherlands.

If these posts raise your interest in working as a researcher in the Netherlands, even better – and feel free to fire away any questions you might have on this topic!

Earlier in my career, I was fortunate to work on multi-year research projects that provided a certain level of stability. With a four-year or six-year project in place, much of my attention could go directly to the research itself: developing ideas, supervising students, analyzing results, and writing papers. Of course, there were always deadlines and deliverables, but the overall structure was relatively stable.

Nowadays, however, the funding landscape feels different. Long-term projects are harder to secure, and many of us find ourselves constantly writing proposals while simultaneously executing ongoing research projects. As a result, a significant portion of academic life has shifted toward balancing research management, proposal development, meetings, reporting, and publication writing.

Over the years, I have developed a number of strategies that help me manage this balance. None of them are magical solutions, but together they help me stay focused, maintain progress across projects, and avoid feeling constantly reactive.

• Plan at the semester level first: One of the most important habits for me is planning at a higher level before zooming into weekly tasks. At the beginning of the semester, I map out all major project deliverables, proposal deadlines, conferences, teaching obligations, and publication goals. I then reserve dedicated blocks of time in my agenda for both ongoing project work and proposal writing. Without this intentional planning, proposal deadlines can easily consume all available time, leaving existing projects to stagnate. Having a semester overview helps me ensure that both activities continue moving forward simultaneously.
• Start proposal preparation much earlier than you think you need to: Proposal writing is never just about writing. Particularly for larger grants, there are internal procedures, approvals, budgeting discussions, and consortium coordination that all take time. In my case, internal processes alone can take around six weeks. As a result, I try to begin preparing proposals as early as possible. That means scheduling the first discussions with collaborators early, clarifying responsibilities ahead of time, and creating internal deadlines that are earlier than the actual submission deadline. This approach reduces last-minute stress and also improves the quality of the proposal. Rushed proposal writing rarely produces compelling ideas.
• Separate meeting time from deep work time: One of the biggest challenges in balancing projects and funding applications is the sheer number of meetings involved. There are meetings for ongoing projects, meetings with consortium partners, meetings about budgets, meetings about deliverables, and meetings about future collaborations. To avoid fragmentation of my day, I try to cluster meetings into specific time slots on certain days of the week. At the same time, I protect longer stretches of uninterrupted time for concentrated work. Proposal writing and research analysis both require deep focus. Trying to do these activities in thirty-minute gaps between meetings is rarely effective. I therefore deliberately block longer periods in my calendar where I can concentrate on either advancing research or writing proposals.
• Build repeatable systems and trackers: One of the lessons I learned over time is that not every process needs to be reinvented. For proposal writing, I use standard checklists and trackers that outline the tasks I typically need to complete for each submission. These include administrative tasks, partner coordination, budget discussions, technical writing, and internal reviews. Having these recurring systems makes planning easier and also improves my ability to estimate how much time proposal preparation will actually require. For research projects themselves, I maintain detailed trackers of activities, deliverables, and milestones. Once a month, I schedule a dedicated review session to check progress and identify bottlenecks. At this stage in my career, much of my work is more project management than actual hands-on research, so having structured systems in place is essential.
• Plan publications as part of the project workflow: One common trap is assuming that publications will somehow “happen later.” In reality, publication writing also requires dedicated planning and protected time. For that reason, I include publication goals directly in my semester planning. If a project generates results, I already want to know when and how these results may become conference papers, journal articles, or reports. Otherwise, ongoing project execution and proposal writing can easily consume all available bandwidth, leaving valuable research unpublished for too long.
• Align activities around your main research lines: Another strategy that has helped me is alignment. Instead of creating too many disconnected activities, I try to center different responsibilities around a smaller number of core research themes. For example, I align bachelor’s theses, master’s theses, committee work, collaborations, and proposal topics with my ongoing research projects whenever possible. This creates synergy between activities instead of fragmentation. The advantage is twofold: first, the work becomes more manageable because different activities reinforce one another. Second, the overall research impact becomes stronger because efforts accumulate around coherent research lines rather than being scattered across unrelated topics.

Balancing multiple research projects while continuously applying for funding is one of the defining challenges of modern academic life. It requires careful planning, realistic scheduling, and a willingness to think strategically about where time and energy are invested. At the same time, I have found that structure creates freedom. By planning ahead, protecting focused work time, and aligning activities, it becomes possible to make steady progress on both current research and future opportunities.

The reality is that proposal writing has become an integral part of academic work. Rather than seeing it as something separate from research, I now try to treat it as part of the broader research ecosystem: proposals generate projects, projects generate publications, publications in turn strengthen future proposals, research feeds into education and vice versa, as well as into collaborations with the public and private sector. Once these elements start reinforcing each other, the balancing act becomes more sustainable.

How do you balance new ideas and executing existing projects?