What are essential funding barriers to get an ambitious and pertinent research proposal funded, and how to overcome them ?

I find it useful to have an idea of the expertise of the assessing committee and the general scientific interests of the funder. When I don't know, I have to make a guess.  Writing the grant to suit the reader (including potential reviewers) is vital.  As most grants will be of high quality, it becomes a bit of a lottery with assessors leaning towards researchers they have followed or have heard about through someone else, so it can become a bit ho-hum and not worth the months preparing a grant application, as the rate of return on the effort is too low.  Better to do something more rewarding for your career and family.

In my opinion, the main challenges in securing a grant are strict qualification prerequisite, such as career stage or memberships requirement, and the fact that most funders are non generic (have a highly specific focus areas). I believe the best approac is to rely on local stakeholders to help generate, at leas for having a preliminary results, while continuing to develop professionally and network until the right funding opportunity arises.

Based on my experience, aligning research questions with the goals of funders while maintaining scientific innovation can greatly enhance the success rate. Emphasizing the public health burden of hepatitis B virus (HBV) in Africa and its consistency with global health security agendas, such as the elimination goals of the World Health Organization (WHO), can play a positive role. Before applying for research projects, our team often uses existing cross-sectional retrospective studies to provide pre-experimentation. Collaborating with other institutions to write proposals can enhance the quality of the proposal, and joint applications from several institutions can better demonstrate the team's ability to solve problems. If competition is fierce, clearly stating in the proposal how research results will be implemented and the economic/social benefits they will bring can attract the attention of the review panel. I hope these suggestions are helpful to you. We would also like to hear the opinions or suggestions of other peers and how they overcome funding challenges in African HBV research.

There is no ambitious and pertinent research proposal. Proposals are normally done after needs assessment has been done. If the proposed research idea aligns with what would help alleviate a specific problem then it is not ambitious. It only becomes one if no proper needs assessment was done hence no adequate implementable research question and design (rationale), that would lead to activities and hence cost. In this regard, if one does not understand the research problem to be addressed then there is no proposal. The ambitious bit of it normally comes on the costing since one wants to cost activities that either are not relevant or does not align with the problem to be solved because one is thinking of solving a none existing problem (imaginary/superficial).  To circumvent this problem, one needs to critically understand the problem at hand, its would be impacts if solved and then development appropriate line methods to solve it.