Grant Funding Outcomes at Six Institutions
Investing in George David Gopen’s
Reader Expectation Approach
(Data compiled by Dr. Barbara Croft from NIH Online Reporting Tools RePORT (02/16/2026.)
For more than three decades, institutions investing in George David Gopen’s Reader Expectation Approach (REA) have seen sustained growth in their annual grant funding. When viewed together, these Reader Expectation Approach training results all show strong upward trajectories in grant funding from their first training until the pandemic in 2021 shifted the landscape While each university has its own context and funding environment, the common pattern is that periods of REA training are followed by sustained growth in grant dollars, highlighting the powerful, scalable impact that clear, reader‑oriented research writing can have on institutional funding success. Below, review the following case studies from: Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, University of North Carolina, University of Pittsburgh, University of Colorado, and Indiana University.
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Funding Case Studies:
Reader Expectation Approach Training Results
Duke University
Duke University implemented REA training continuously from 1992 through 2020, and the chart shows a strong long‑term rise in grant funding that tracks this sustained commitment, from roughly 0.10 billion dollars in the early 1990s to more than 0.70 billion dollars at its peak in the early 2020s. Even with normal year‑to‑year fluctuations, the overall trajectory is sharply upward, indicating that embedding REA principles across departments has contributed to a durable, institution‑wide capacity for winning large, complex grants.
Indiana University
Indiana University began REA training in 2006 and continued through 2020, and its funding curve demonstrates a clear positive shift following this adoption, moving from roughly 0.10 billion dollars in the mid‑2000s to about a quarter‑billion dollars by the mid‑2020s. After the initial training years, the graph shows renewed growth spurts—particularly around and after 2015—that align with ongoing REA offerings, suggesting that expanded mastery of reader‑focused writing has been a key factor in Indiana’s success in attracting external research support.
University of North Carolina
The University of North Carolina adopted Dr. Gopen’s REA training as an ongoing program from 2004 through 2020, and its funding curve reflects a steady and substantial climb over that period, from roughly 0.30 billion dollars in the mid‑2000s to more than 0.50 billion dollars by the early 2020s. The close alignment between the training years and the long, sustained rise in grant dollars suggests that systematically teaching faculty and trainees to write in a reader‑centered way helped UNC secure an expanding share of competitive research support.
University of Pittsburgh
At the University of Pittsburgh, REA trainings in 1997, 2004, and 2013 coincide with three distinct periods of acceleration in grant funding, transforming a modest 0.10–0.15 billion dollars in the mid‑1990s into nearly 0.70 billion dollars by 2025. Each training year is followed by a sustained upward shift in the funding curve, indicating that repeated investment in proposal‑writing skills produced compounding gains in the institution’s grant portfolio.
University of Colorado
Following the introduction of Dr. Gopen’s Reader Expectation Approach at the University of Colorado in 2013 and 2014, the institution’s grant funding entered a markedly steeper growth phase, rising from under 0.20 billion dollars in the early 2010s to more than 0.35 billion dollars by the mid‑2020s. The graph shows that, after this training period, annual grant dollars increased almost every year, suggesting that clearer, reader‑focused proposals helped Colorado investigators compete more successfully for external awards.
Johns Hopkins University
For Johns Hopkins University, REA trainings in 1996 and 2002 are followed by rapid increases in grant dollars, taking the institution from the mid‑0.20‑billion range in the early 1990s to above 0.60 billion dollars shortly after 2005. After a period of relative plateau, funding again climbs strongly after 2015 to approach 0.90 billion dollars by 2025, underscoring how early adoption of REA helped establish a powerful grant‑writing culture that continues to support one of the nation’s leading research portfolios.
Why These Funding Trends Matter
These funding trends underscore the importance of treating grant writing as a strategic, high‑leverage activity rather than a last‑minute administrative task. Across multiple institutions, the sustained growth in annual awards over decades aligns with long‑term investments in teaching researchers to write proposals that anticipate readers’ expectations and make complex science easier to evaluate. While many factors contribute to funding success, the consistent upward trajectories at sites that have adopted Dr. Gopen’s Reader Expectation Approach suggest that clear, reader‑centered writing is a powerful force multiplier for existing scientific excellence. The institutions above represent a range of sizes, disciplines, and funding contexts — yet the pattern holds across all of them. If you’d like similar results, you can request a discovery call to discuss REA training for your institution.