Guidelines for Preparing Grant Proposals

All Research Grant proposals and Letters of Intent are submitted via the CAAA Grants page.

There are two-stages for the CPA Canada–CAAA Research Grant. First, you must submit a letter of intent, which the sponsoring organization evaluates. Second, the successful applicants are invited to submit a full grant proposal, which is evaluated by a research sub-committee appointed for each specific grant program.

No letter of intent is needed in submitting for the CAAA Research Grant. You only need to submit a full blind proposal with a cover page. (See Terms and Conditions "Proposal").

It’s important to remember your audience:

  • Letter of intents are reviewed by the sponsoring organization, whose reviewers may be experts in accounting practice but unaware of the current literature in your research area.
  • The full blind proposals are reviewed by a research sub-committee, comprising active researchers, expert in the particular area of the grant program. 
  • The proposals will be blind, and reviewed solely on their content. Very important: In the blind proposal, there should not be any author(s) contact information or institution.

Some Recommendations

Both the letter of intent and the full proposal must be understandable to a knowledgeable person who is not an expert in the research area. Use common language, not jargon, and describe your research tools. For example, an empirical model familiar to you may be unknown to a behavioural researcher. Define essential acronyms and avoid using any others. We encourage you to have a colleague working with a different research paradigm review your letter and proposal to ensure they are easily understood.

Letter of intent is reviewed by the sponsoring organization, whose reviewers may be experts in accounting practice but unaware of the current literature in your research area.

The letter of intent is limited to one single-spaced page, so you must be clear and concise. You must include a cover page with project title, full name, institution and current e-mail address. The letter should focus on three issues: research question, research method, and relevance. There is no need to review the related academic literature or provide a budget and timeline, as these items belong in your full proposal.

  • Clearly describe the research question.
  • Concisely describe the proposed research method. For example, are you using archival data, a questionnaire, or an experiment where will you use subjects and/or data?
  • Clearly describe the project’s relevance, focusing on practice and on the sponsoring organization’s criteria.

Submitting a full proposal: The proposal must address all of the relevant elements linted in the Terms and Conditions

  • There are no limits on a proposal’s length, but most successful proposals have had fewer than fifteen double-spaced pages (including the bibliography, budget, and timetable, but not including the curriculum vitae).
  • Missing information or cursory discussion of an issue reduces the probability that your project will be funded.
  • All members of the research team must be CAAA members. (See the Terms & Conditions)
  • The description of the research question and method should reference the existing literature. It should demonstrate how the proposed research represents a contribution to the literature and explain the significance of the proposed research.
  • The proposal must include a realistic timetable. Timely completion is important to our sponsoring organizations and to the study’s contribution to the literature.
  • Provide a thorough justification for each item in the budget and the amount of money associated with that budget item.
  • Describe how this grant proposal links to other funding obtained or applied for. Past CPA Canada–CAAA & CAAA research grants have been used as seed funding to start a project, and also by others to fund a clearly defined segment of a research program.
  • Applicants may not submit identical or substantially similar projects to concurrent CPA Canada–CAAA & CAAA Research Grant programs.

The maximum grant is $10,000. 

If you follow the Guidelines and our recommendations, we firmly believe that you have a good chance of getting your project funded. The Research Committee looks forward to receiving your proposals now and in the future.