When applying for proposals for research and development grants, research firms, and university research departments must be very careful.
For instance, if they apply for a grant from the federal government, the United States government may in turn send out a solicitation to other research firms to give everyone a chance to bid on it.
If the person writing the proposal for the research and development in the first place gives all the specifications of what they can do, then the government will end up giving away all their information in the solicitation process.
Worse, it can be a slap in the face when the original company applying for the grant loses out to a low-cost bidder or even a scientific research competitor.
In other words, their competition gets the money instead of their R&D department, and they might secure the discovery that they were working on and needed the funding to get to.
That's quite unfortunate when you think about it and it's really not fair.
This is why you have to be very careful when you're writing proposals for research and development monies.
Additionally, if you give a proposal for such a research project to a large Corporation, they are liable to ask their other vendors who are working on similar things if they can get a better price.
Once the Corporation gets behind the idea they will eventually develop it and set up a project management team to see the innovations to fruition.
You can see the dilemma this causes when groups need research dollars to fund their greatest inventions, innovations, and concepts.
I sure hope you will please consider all this when doing your technical writing.