Prospects

In less than four months, my grant will end. In theory, I might get new funding by then, from the proposal we submitted last month. However, only like one in six proposals gets funded. I'll be submitting one in July, but it wouldn't start until April, and again, there are no guarantees. I expect to submit another one in October.

We get minor bits of funding for writing proposals, and as long as we're at .50 or greater FTE (with up to three months per calendar year where the minimum is .35 instead), we can keep our health insurance. It would be nice to keep my health insurance. I figured out today, though, that I would have to average one grant proposal per month to have funding for the last four months of the year. Hard to say if it's worth it - on the one hand, I'd rather write the stuff I want to write. On the other hand, you have to submit grant proposals to get funding...

Well. I'll know more by July (whether they liked the proposal we did in April), and I'll know more in November (whether they'll like the proposal I'm working on now). That latter one would have me all set at .50 FTE for another five or six years. That's the one I want!