The aims page decides the grant
Reviewers read a lot of applications. By the time they reach the approach section they have usually decided how they feel, and the aims page is where that happened.
The most common structural problem is three aims that could each be removed without affecting the others. That reads as a list of experiments rather than a programme. Aims that build, where the second depends on what the first establishes, read as a line of reasoning.
The second problem is aims that are really methods. An aim is a question you will answer. If it can be restated as a technique, it belongs in the approach.
Write the aims page first, show it to someone outside your subfield, and rewrite it until they can repeat the argument back. Everything after it is easier once that page holds.
Working on something like this?
Get help from an expertWhat an evidence plan actually needs before you run the first test
Most testing programmes are designed backwards. Decide what claim you need to defend, then work out what data defends it.
Mateus RochaShort color science training measurably improves shade matching
What our 2025 study found, and what it means for how restorative dentistry is taught.
Dayane OliveiraWhere general AI fails on specialized dental questions
General models answer confidently and cite nothing. For clinical questions that is the wrong trade.
Mateus Rocha