[rbartelme]

"Grant Applications:

Very specific academic "skill" which is intimately tied to the bureaucracy of the university system of your particular country or region. It also has a lot to do with things that aren't even in the application: who you know and what ? they think of you. Whatever org you join later will have some other way for funding to come down, and there are so many varieties of org that you'll just have to learn on that job."

I think the country/region part you mention is most relevant here, but I disagree with the overall assessment of grant writing being irrelevant. If you work in a start-up or the R&D division of a company, there's still grant money to be had. This lets companies pursue high risk projects while not jeopardizing overall revenue.

[lordnacho]

> start-up or the R&D division

Well certainly a large R&D division is similar to a university, but if you go that way, of course it makes sense to have a PhD. The question is whether the skill is applicable to things that aren't basically the same thing.

For start-ups, getting funding does not look like a university grant application, surely? At least I've heard many many versions of what people did, and none of them sounded much like what my PhD friends did.