The “Starting a Grant proposal” Lake Como Summer School will offer an international and interdisciplinary workshop for Ph.D. students and early-stage researchers with the aim to explore how to write a successful grant proposal and to enhance interdisciplinary research. We propose a second edition of our School, relying on the successful experience of the 1st edition, held in Summer 2022. Grant writing is a key requirement for research scientists. It is a complex task which requires skills to organise the workflow, a methodological approach to prioritise information, and writing experience, all of which are difficult to acquire during the course of a PhD program.

The School will provide insights about which aspects are usually more valued by reviewers and that are essential to achieve high evaluation scores. Activities and lectures will cover all the steps necessary to convey a successful grant proposal, from conceptualization to writing.  We will involve high profile speakers with a highly recognized scientific profile. The interdisciplinary spirit of the Summer School is aimed at enhancing cooperation among researchers from different fields of research. This will be a tremendous opportunity to create a network of researchers that may share knowledge and widen each other’s perspective on how to approach grant writing. Our goal is to leverage the value of contamination between disciplines in the discovery of innovative tools, ideas and solutions. In order to achieve this aim, the School will encourage the creation of small multi-disciplinary groups that will work in synergy to create innovative and interdisciplinary grant proposal ideas that will be evaluated at the end of the Summer School.