mentorship and academic networks

Ilham wrote:
How can mentorship and academic networks be leveraged to improve the quality of grant proposals?

Mentorship and academic networks improve grant proposals by providing expert guidance, constructive feedback, and collaboration opportunities. Mentors help refine ideas and align them with funder priorities, while networks offer peer review and diverse expertise. Together, they strengthen both the quality and competitiveness of proposals.

What do you think? @Ilham 

Mentorship and academic networks are imperative in grant writing. Mentors are most often the supervisor/PI within the research group and help align proposal to the funder's and institute's priorities. Furthermore, mentors, being highly experienced and having advanced networks, often help with forming collaborations for that specific proposal. For an early career researcher like myself getting into writing a qualitative research proposal while my background is molecular virology, my mentor has been key in introducing me  to relevant people who have been great resources in refining my proposal further.