Is it not that way in other sciences? It's funny that I just assumed all sciences did the same thing. In fact, my wife works in a museum, and I was stunned to find out that they write grants for work that isn't even started yet.

> Is it not that way in other sciences?

I can speak to the fact that this is absolutely the case in the physical sciences.

CS is somewhere in the middle of those two extremes. You write grants for things you haven't done yet but also you typically have some initial work (maybe a minor publication, maybe not) to prove the direction is promising enough to fund.

Thats interesting. Thats how a friend of mine who's finishing up her major in biology explained it when she told me about how her professors lab got grants.