??? A contract is just a legal agreement. Grants come with contracts, and that’s good. It means they have to be spent on things related to the purpose the grant was awarded for. They aren’t just monetary gifts.
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A grant is given without an expectation for a research result. A contract has a very clear expectation. It's a subtle but important difference. They aren't gifts, but they aren't contracts either.
I understand that contracted research is different than a grant. But when you accept a grant you also are also agreeing to spend that money for certain purposes to advance your research goals. That agreement is a contract.
Actually, there's a lot of leeway you have as a grantee. You don't have to do what you proposed in a grant. A contract is different. I speak from experience as a study section member and as a grantee.
To clarify: some sponsored research is in the form of grants, where the end goal is figuring something out in terms of a research question; some is in the form of contracts, where the requirement is to come up with a deliverable. Most federal funding is grants, but not all.
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