Do you expose your trainees to the NIH Grant sausage making?

Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made. –Otto von Bismarck. (or maybe it was John Godfrey Saxe)

Our longtime commenter bsci recently asked:

DM, This brings up a suggestion for a potential future posts. What DO you do to train your mentees for academia? Do they get to read your grants? Comment? Write parts of an R01? I assume you have them submit NRSAs, but merely submitting isn’t a training experience. Have you found ways to improve the educational utility of the process?

Let me answer this last question first. I have no idea if I am improving or impairing the “educational utility” of the training I provide. I just don’t have the numbers. There are many differences in the motivations and desires of trainees, these motivations shift significantly from the beginning to the end of a typical training stint and if a job is the outcome measure, then we are all at the mercy of a varying job market.
The grant part, however, I can answer.