Grant Template

Typst template for NIH-style grant documents. Uses Liberation Serif and enforces NIH formatting rules (US Letter, 0.5″ margins, 11 pt, justified text, heading styles).

Using this template

1. Click Use this template → Create a new repository on GitHub.

2. Clone your new repo and initialize the formatting submodule:

   git clone --recurse-submodules git@github.com:YOUR-USERNAME/YOUR-REPO

   Or if already cloned:

   git submodule update --init --recursive

3. Update the badge URLs and image URL at the top of this README to use your username and repo name.

4. Copy the CI workflow into place:

   mkdir -p .github/workflows
   cp assets/grants_common/github_workflows/release.yml .github/workflows/release.yml

Writing the grant

Edit the .typ files directly. Each section is a separate file:

File	Section
main.typ	Entry point — imports sections and applies NIH formatting
aims-standalone.typ	Additional entry point — preview of Aims only with formatting
aims.typ	Specific Aims
approach.typ	Research Strategy / Approach
facillities.typ	Facilities & Resources

main.typ should import the NIH template and each section file:

#import "/assets/grants_common/lib.typ": *
#show: nih-format

== Specific Aimes
#include "aims.typ"

== Approach
#include "approach.typ"

== Facilities
#include "facilities.typ"

Within a section file, use standard Typst markup:

Paragraph text goes here. *Bold*, _italic_, and @citation are supported.

== Aim 1: Short title

Description of the aim.

- Hypothesis: ...
- Approach: ...

Heading levels follow NIH rules automatically: = → bold, == → bold italic, === → italic.

Exporting individual sections

For exporting individual sections (eg Specific Aims) as standalone documents, create a section-standalone.typ that imports the formatting components and just includes the relevant section, eg

// aims-standalone.typ
#import "/assets/grants_common/lib.typ": *
#show: nih-format

= Specific Aims

#include "aims.typ"

#bibliography("refs.bib", title: none, style: "apa")

If you need a different page limit or margin for a specific section, override just that file:

#show: nih-format.with(page-overrides: (margin: 0.75in))

Building locally

Requires Typst 0.14 and Liberation Serif (sudo apt-get install fonts-liberation or equivalent).

# Compile once
typst compile main.typ grant.pdf

# Watch for changes
typst watch main.typ grant.pdf

# export with current commit hash
# fish shell
typst compile main.typ ~/Downloads/(basename $PWD)-(git rev-parse --short HEAD).pdf

# bash/zsh
typst compile main.typ ~/Downloads/$(basename $PWD)-$(git rev-parse --short HEAD).pdf

Releases and PDF builds

Creating a GitHub release triggers the CI workflow to compile main.typ and aims-standalone.typ, attaching grant.pdf and aims.pdf to the release.

To create a release:

gh release create v1.0 --title "submission draft" --notes "Initial submission draft"