As a potential future researcher I would like to know how much I could focus on my research and how much distraction grants cause. My research interest lie in theoretical cs and logic, however the answers should include other areas so that they may be useful to other readers too.
Specifically, how many hours of your working day on average is dedicated to grant related issues - searching a grant, writing a grant proposal, writing the final report for the funded projects, etc.
I heard in an informal talk that this can be as much as half of the time of the researcher, say 5 hours, Monday to Friday. In such circumstance, I do not think I would be able to focus on the research.
Answer
In my case (pure mathematics) it is about two or three weeks of hectic activity before the October 1 NSF deadline once every 2-3 years. I cannot say that I do nothing else during that time but it definitely distracts me quite a bit. What helps is that we (I and a few my colleagues and friends) often apply for collaborative research grants (so we have well-established separation of labor when writing, which increases the speed noticeably).
The reports are easy if you have something real to show. I would say it takes me at most a couple of hours to write mine. Recommendation letters and reviews usually take much more time.
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