Discretionary grant
A grant an agency awards at its own discretion, through a competition, to applicants it selects. This is the kind of grant a searchable catalogue is mostly made of, because it is the kind with an open application window and a deadline.
Part of the GrantTrove grant funding glossary — one entry for every field the catalogue stores.
Also called Competitive grant · Project grant
In detail
Discretion is bounded: the agency competes within an appropriation and against published criteria, and it has to be able to defend its selection. What it does not have is a formula that dictates the answer.
The competitive ratio is the number nobody publishes reliably. Some notices state an expected number of awards, which with the pool gives a rough sense of scale, and most do not state either.
Against a cooperative agreement
Both are competed. A cooperative agreement adds substantial federal involvement in carrying the work out — an agency staff member with a role in the project, not merely a monitor. The award instrument is stated on the notice, and it changes how the work is run rather than how it is won.
How GrantTrove stores it
- `deadline_at` and `deadline_type` carry the application window, with `deadline_note` holding the source’s own wording where a deadline is qualified.
- Where a notice states an expected number of awards, that sentence is kept in `amount_note` beside `amount_total_pool`, because a pool without an award count says nothing about award size.
Common questions
How competitive is a given programme?
We do not publish success rates. Where a notice states an expected number of awards, that sentence is on the record; where it does not, there is no honest figure to give.
Is every listed grant discretionary?
No, but most with a real deadline are. The eligibility and deadline fields are what distinguish them.
Does discretion mean the decision is arbitrary?
No. It means the agency selects against published criteria rather than calculating an amount from a formula.