Validate a grant proposal against section, page-limit and budget rules before submission. Free, no sign-up.
What this tool does
Grant proposals are rejected for format before anyone reads the science: a missing biosketch, a budget over the cap, a narrative page over the limit. Funders publish the rules, but nobody checks them line by line at midnight before the deadline. This engine takes your section list with page counts, your budget total and the funder’s limits, and returns a pass/fail checklist — missing sections named, over-limit sections flagged, budget headroom shown — so format never kills a good proposal.
Why it matters
Good citations do quiet work. They let a reader find every source you used, they show that your argument rests on real evidence rather than memory, and they protect you: a clean reference list is much harder to challenge than a vague one. Most marks lost on referencing are not lost on difficult sources. They are lost on small, repeated slips — a missing year, a swapped initial, a title in the wrong case — that a quick tool pass catches before submission.
How to use it
- List required sections and the pages each of yours has.
- Enter the budget cap and your budget total.
- Read the pass/fail checklist and fix the fails.
Worked example
Required: Summary, Narrative (max 15 pp), Budget, Biosketch. Yours: Summary 1 p, Narrative 17 pp, Budget present, Biosketch missing, total $120,000 vs cap $100,000. Result: FAIL — Narrative 2 pages over; Biosketch missing; budget $20,000 over cap. Three fixes, all visible before submission.
Tips for good results
Validate twice: once when the draft is complete, and once after final edits. Last-minute additions are how page limits break.
Work from the source itself, not from another paper’s copy of it. And keep one style for the whole list: a single mixed entry undermines an otherwise perfect bibliography.
Honest limits
The engine checks the rules you enter; it does not know any funder’s real rules and cannot read your proposal document. Page limits here are per-section limits you state, and budget checks cover totals only, not line-item eligibility. Always confirm against the current call text.
Common mistakes to avoid
Common mistakes to avoid: copying a reference from another paper without checking it against the original, trusting a PDF filename for the title or year, and mixing two styles in one list. Each of these looks harmless alone and careless together. Run the tool, read its output once, and compare it with the source itself before you paste it into your document.
Before you submit
Run through this short check before you submit: is every author name spelled as it appears on the source, is every year present and correct, and does every in-text citation have a matching entry in your reference list? Read the list once from top to bottom rather than skimming it. Most referencing errors are found in that single slow read, and fixing them there is far cheaper than fixing them after a reviewer finds them. If one entry still looks odd after that read, check it against the original source before you change anything else.
Frequently asked questions
Is this tool really free?
Yes. It runs in your browser on this page, with no account and no payment. Nothing you paste leaves your computer.
Do I still need to check the result?
Yes, once. Tools apply rules; they cannot verify facts about your source. Compare the output with the source itself before submitting.
Can I use the output in my paper?
Yes. The output is a formatted reference or analysis for your own work. Keep the source’s facts accurate and the formatting consistent across your list.
What if the tool’s output differs from my style guide?
Trust the style guide. Tools encode the common rules of a style; your university or journal’s own sheet wins every disagreement. Use the tool to do the routine work, then apply the local rule where it differs.
Also available in Spanish: Motor de Validación de Formato de Propuestas de Subvención – Validador de Secciones, Páginas y Presupuesto Gratis.