But if you think that a "beggar" is going to get grants, choke on this: in the USA right now, only about 1 in 10 grant proposals to NIH get funded. In many other countries, it is even harder than that.
Starting in January, NIH is implementing a shortened grant format for all of the main grant types, including R01's and K awards. This came from very long and involved deliberation with many members of the research community, spanning years.
That grant was submitted, and on its first round of submission, it got a score around 5th percentile. My colleague helped me turn my grant proposal from junk into a more than fundable proposal - simply by looking at my specific aims, and nothing else.
I had a fun evening reviewing some grant proposals for graduate students taking a grant writing class.
None of the proposals got me excited. I'm sure this was because the