I guess that depends on where in the world you are.

Apply for them.

TheTick, yeah sounds good. Problem is where to start?
One good address is all I need or phone number.  

Actually giving people enough information to be able to help you would be a better start.

As you seem unwilling or unable to tell us where you live we can only guess, so assuming you live in the UK and indeed you are starting or running an engineering business try business link.

http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/home?r.l1=1079068363&r.lc=en&r.s=m

Matthew Lesko has been publishing books about how to apply for us gov grants for over a decade, should be able find one in the library or on-line.

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Forging     http://mech.e.tripod.com
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Ddraig Breuddwydia....www.tailofthedragon.com

fyi

Googling the "value" of

matthew lesko

 will prove informative . . .  

Lesko is in it to sell books, so he makes marketing claims.  His book, I read 12 years ago, has what the op asked for, which is names and numbers of people and the names of some programs that the gov creates.

So the "free money" stuff is a moot point.

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Forging     http://mech.e.tripod.com
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Ddraig Breuddwydia....www.tailofthedragon.com

I'm in the good ole US of A. Government grants? all I have ever seen are for a business, or homes, at that sort of thing. I want to get a research grant, you know like researchers get. All those books are for every grant there is EXCEPT a RESEARCH GRANT. My wife and her son even joined one of those high priced grant seminars some years ago. Did it help? NO. Huge waste of money. They knew absoluty nothing about how to get a research grant. Yes they knew all about every other grant under the sun.
I have no interest in getting a grant for a house or schooling. I want a RESEARCH GRANT.  

Research grant for what specifically?

For yourself as an individual or do you have a company?

Do you have a PhD? have you done research before?

Outside of an academic institution, almost all research grants are awarded thru the SBIR and STTR programs by US gov agencies such DoD, DoE, DoT.  Look up on their web site for their SBIR/STTR programs.  But most of those are pre-wired for someone, so they can be hard to win.

Search under the government agecies, they're there...just have to peruse through the sites.
You should have mentioned more detail first, this could have been a 'green' thread.

Chris
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For what? Alternate fuel and efficiency, and another fuel related secret deal, not looking for any competition.
PHD, so whats that have to do with research? I can name a long list of researchers in history that barely made it through high school. And not for a business, for me the researcher.
Why do you have to be a business to do research work? There would be no time for the headaches of a business.
The important part I feel should be the end results of the research.

In order to get government funded research grants, you often need to be associated with a university.  The reason for the question about a PhD. is that most researchers, to whom grants are given, are involved in research as a life-long venture, and have academic credentials to offer, or there is a specific research need that requires filling and funding can be given by industry.  One-time, single-source research projects are difficult to get funded.

You might try the Small Business Administration...they have a grant group that might be able to help you identify a funding source and they have guidelines on how to prepare grant proposals (which are key to getting someone to look at your idea).

Ron's statement is true for STTR grants, there is another form of grant called the sbir. http://www.sbir.gov/
They open to solicitation annually and are given by phase. I know they are somewhat tricky to get, best to get a grant writer.

dicer..  are you really questioning the value of a PhD for research purposes?

A PhD is, by definition, a research degree. Ron has it right. Although you may not like or agree with the research conducted by PhD's in academic institutions, they are in large part the drivers of discovery and knowledge.

You very well may be brilliant and fully capable of conducting sound science; but you really ought to have been exposed to the process before jumping in.

And I am not a PhD, nor, quite frankly, do I have any interest in becoming a PhD. I prefer to practice than to research.

After losing my job last December and hearing all the whoopla coming out of our current administration about "energy independence,""going green," and "economic stimulus," my wife and I decided to look into getting some government grant money for alternative energy research.  I had some ideas that I thought would be great to test and put into practice. And, no, I don't have a PhD.

After doing some digging and making some phone calls, we found all sorts of information on how to apply for grants.  The long and the short of it is: unless you are in a recognized minority group, you are a professor at a university, or you are some big corporation that's been tapped into government-funded R&D before, you are entitled to get bupkis from Uncle Sugar.

 

I have been the principal investigator on several SBIR's, I don't have a PhD, and our company has only 5 full time  employees.  It is possible, but you must be prepared for a ton of background work for a good chance at receiving a grant.  I would start by finding a champion in the applicable agency.  The one agency where these grants are not "wired" is the NSF, where having a PhD is a huge benefit.  In this case, a good resume is a must (PE, advanced degree, etc.).  If your idea is that great and you don't have a good resume, team with a university (STTR).

In short, grant writing and grant research is akin to getting a job.