Going beyond your Comfort Zone

'Create your own method' (Photo by Kyle Head on Unsplash)

It is easy to feel like a fraud. As an early-career academic, it is almost part of the job description. Everyone else seems to know more than you. Everyone else is more effective. Everyone else is just, well, better than you. And it won’t be long until you are exposed as the sham you clearly are.

Five Ingredients for a Perfect Research Funding Bid

Five ingredients for a perfect recipe.
Photo by Calum Lewis on Unsplash

Is there a formula for a successful funding proposal? Not quite, but there are five elements that you should definitely keep in mind when drafting your application. 

What You Need to Know: Applying for GCRF Funding

Photo by Thomas Young on Unsplash

GCRF is not straightforward: there are important caveats and qualifications that all applicants should be aware of before they tentatively dip their toe in the GCRF waters.

Understanding Intellectual Property

Copyright: but what does it mean?
(image: Vlad Podvorny, public domain mark 1.0)

What is intellectual property, and how does it differ from, say, copyright? Here are the basics, in plain English.

In Search of the Royal Society Success Rates

Somewhere behind the Palladian grandeur success rates lurk. Possibly (image: Steve Slater, CC BY 2.0).

One of my roles at the University of Kent is secretary to the Research and Innovation Board, which decides on policy and strategy. I’m not a natural bureaucrat, but the paper shuffling, agenda setting and minute writing are compensated for somewhat by the ringside seat I get for the discussions that decide the institutional direction on research and innovation. 

At the most recent meeting, the board looked at success rates for different funders. In readiness for this we had gathered data on how the university compared with funder averages. For the research councils, this was fairly straightforward. Success rates are produced annually for each of the seven councils, via Times Higher. You can see last year’s figures here.

Success rates for the Leverhulme Trust take a little more digging, but the figures can be found in its annual reports. The Wellcome Trust gives more global figures but does provide a comprehensive analysis by gender and age profile, disciplinary distribution and award rate over time. And the British Academy offers all of its figures when its officers give presentations, such as on these slides given to King’s College London.

So it came as a surprise when I could find nothing on the Royal Society’s website about its success rates.

Broken Ranks

The only rank that counts (Image: Brett Jordan, CC BY 2.0)

A couple of years ago I wrote in the Funding Insight magazine about the modern obsession with league tables and how, while relatively harmless when used to bulk out a Sunday newspaper, they could be dangerously corrosive when attempting to compare universities globally.

I was heartened, then, to read a report published before Christmas by the Higher Education Policy Institute. This arrived with little fanfare, possibly because the world in general was torn between seeing the election of Donald Trump as the End of Days, and obsessively comparing and buying scented candles for their loved ones.

Top Tips for International Collaboration

Globetrotting (image: Kenneth Lu, CC BY 2.0)

There’s never been a more important time to hear from academics with overseas experience. At a time when it feels as if many countries—including the UK—are becoming more isolationist and inward looking, it pays to reflect on what they have to say.

Ian McLoughlin, head of computing at the University of Kent’s Medway campus, is one example, “I spent 18 years working abroad,” he said, when he spoke to the Global Challenges and Newton Fund workshop at the university recently, “and it was the highlight of my career.” He is evangelical about the benefit and worth of collaborating internationally.

Trumping Science

Trump (photo: Wikipedia)

For the second time this year, I woke to news that winded me. As I left the house, the rain hammered against my face and coursed down the gutters. It felt that weather was a physical manifestation of the despair that many of us felt.

As the UK had done nearly five months before, the United States appeared to have voted for isolationism after a divisive, bullying, ill-informed campaign. Fear, anger and retreat had triumphed over hope, openness and inclusivity.

For the second time this year, I tried to imagine what this result may do for research and the funding that underpins it. The initial signs aren’t good.

OA: Challenging the Status Quo

In some ways open access doesn’t do itself any favours. It should be a no-brainer: an idealistic movement to unshackle knowledge from the citadels that imprison it, making it free to all those who want to learn. A people’s movement to challenge power. It’s Robin Hood and the Peasants’ Revolt. It’s David and Goliath. It’s the Levellers and the Chartists. It’s the French, American and Russian Revolutions rolled into one. But without the oppression and the terror.

And yet. And yet it’s a hard movement to really love. Possibly it’s all those acronyms, arcane differentiation and complex licensing options.

‘What do we want?’

‘CC-BY! Or possibly CC-BY-SA. Okay, maybe CC-BY-NA at the very, very least.’

‘When do we want it?’

‘Wait! I haven’t finished. I really think we should push for Green OA, and use the CASRAI principles for the underlying data management. Oh, and using ORCIDs, of course. But that’s a given, right?’

‘Okay. Right. When do we want it?’

‘Now I’m assuming no embargo, yes? And are we going OA from date of publication or acceptance?’

Yes, it would be tough to spray paint that on a banner to wave at the barricades. At times it feels like a revolution for bureaucrats.

Goldilocks Grants

The first, second and third reviewers disagree about the merits
of Goldilock's research methodology

Earlier this year Michael Lauer, the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Deputy Director for Extramural Research, wrote an interesting blog post examining the productivity of its funding. He looked for a correlation between the amount of funding a project had received and the number of citations it got. This he described as “citations per dollar”.

Such a stark metric had many rolling their eyes, and the comments that followed questioned the underlying supposition. “Numbers of citations rarely correlate with greatest discoveries”, wrote one commentator. “Citation numbers are strongly biased towards fast-moving areas of inquiry”, said another. A third noted that “the number of citations a paper receives is an extremely error-prone measure of scientific merit.”

Nevertheless, I think it’s worth exploring Lauer’s work further for two reasons. First, because it is entirely appropriate for funders to try to assess the most effective use of their limited resources. Second, because the conclusion he hints at runs counter to the current drive by the majority of funders to back larger and longer projects.

Research Funding and the Premiership

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a university in possession of a good research income must be in want of more. At the Association of Research Managers and Administrators conference in Birmingham earlier this year, Randolph Haggerty of the University of Leeds and Ann Charlett-Day of the University of Sheffield explored this perplexing maxim. Can we really all grow bigger? And, if so, how?

Like Oliver Twist, all universities want more, and many are met with disbelief. Haggerty came clean and said that his own institution aimed to increase its research income by 50 per cent. Others are even more ambitious: Kent aims to double its income and the University of Huddersfield aims to triple it. This, Haggerty suggested drily, was “challenging”.

Nevertheless, the present climate gives universities little choice. The Research Excellence Framework uses research income as a metric to measure a healthy research environment. The results of that feed through into league tables, which, in turn, inform the recruitment of students and staff.

Beyond Its Natural End

Jes. No, not that one. 

When I was working at the Arts and Humanities Research Council a colleague was given the task of preparing procedures to revolutionise the application system.

“What, we’re going to share a common application form with all the other councils? With the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council? With the Medical Research Council?” I asked.

“Yes”, she answered simply. And while I scoffed, and was sceptical about the potential for the artists and lone scholars of the arts and humanities to find common ground with engineers and scientists, she was vindicated by history.

In 2002 the Joint Electronic Submission (Je-S) system was born. At first people were horrified. It was just so...complicated. It seemed to ask for the same information multiple times. And all those attachments. But over the years people have become, if not exactly fond, then at least accepting of it.

But it has begun to show its age. Last autumn the research councils announced that they were going to replace the creaking system. “Je-S is no longer a viable product,” they admitted. “It has come to a natural end and this is a fantastic opportunity to design a smarter, simpler, more user-friendly service in line with the latest digital standards.” Say what you like about the research councils, but they are wonderfully optimistic.

Generating Priorities

Deep in the heart of Death Star House, RCUK
workers tirelessly adjust the settings for the Priority Generator

Sometimes, calls for thematic programmes make complete sense. Sometimes they sort of make sense, once you dig a little deeper. Sometimes they make no sense at all.

It was the last category that prompted me to develop the Research Council Priority Generator for my blog. It was a tongue-in-cheek look at how the funders seem to jam together apparently random and often conflicting ideas to create new themes. The generator would give you Nanotechnology and Remembrance, for instance, or Progress towards Language, Radicalisation beyond Space and Expressionism in Transport.

None of these seemed a million miles from the real thing, such as Science in Culture, Lifelong Health and Wellbeing, Nanoscience through Engineering, Care for the Future and Living with Environmental Change. Indeed, the random generation of priorities gave us themes that were all too plausible, such as Progress and Islam, Technology of Wellbeing and Curating the Future.

Reviewing Peer Review

Internal peer review has become increasingly prevalent in universities across the UK. The trend is the result of a push by the research councils for institutions to manage the quality of their applications better, but also to an implicit need to give academics as much advantage as possible in the increasingly competitive world of grant-winning.

In some ways, an internal peer-review system is a no-brainer. Showing your application to others for comment prior to submission is an obvious step, right? Well, yes and no.

Mapping Regional Strengths

A lot has happened since July 2015 when the then Chancellor, George Osborne talked about working with universities and other partners to map regional strengths. The article below, published in March this year, looked at their plans, and the report from the Council for Science and Technology that had just done such a mapping exercise. What with Brexit, the HE White Paper, the Stern and Nurse Reviews, well: attention has been elsewhere. Still, an interesting reminder of how far we've travelled in six months - for better or worse. 

Vanilla Strategies

Just a little bit 'meh'

Last month I mentioned that the University of Kent had been going through the process of drafting a new Institutional Plan, with an associated Research and Innovation Strategy. The strategy’s vision is for the university to be “clearly recognised worldwide for the quality of its research...[to undertake] radical and innovative research [with] broader impact...to be exploited through partnership with those in industry, government, charity or the cultural sector...[and] embedding research-led teaching.”

Excellent research, impact, partnership, and research-led teaching. Sounds familiar? If it does, it’s no surprise. Almost every university has something similar: essentially they all want to host the best researchers undertaking the best research with the best partners, which will result in the best impact and best teaching. Sometimes interdisciplinarity is thrown in, sometimes mention is made of specific disciplinary priorities.

A Hundred Years of Haldane

Philosopher-politician Richard Haldane

It was a very odd experience to read about the higher education green paper as I sat on a train rattling past Romford and Chelmsford. I was on my way to the first Eastern Academic Research Consortium conference at the University of Essex, and I was receiving emails and tweets about the approaching tsunami.

“If all its measures are enacted as planned,” suggested one commentator, “[it] will represent the biggest changes to the higher education sector since 1992.” I looked out the window. Chelmsford looked pretty much like it had always done. There was no evidence of “sweeping changes”, no apparent “battle lines drawn”. Just a grey autumn morning, rows of houses and early-morning dog walkers.

The New Regionalisation of UK Higher Education

In February this year a research team from Loughborough University published a report on The New Regionalisation of UK Higher Education. New regionalisation might be a phenomenon unfamiliar to many, but the authors suggested that this would not be the case for much longer.

Describing it somewhat dramatically as "a silent revolution", the report maps out "a distinctly new regional geography of higher education…[that is] currently unfolding at an accelerated pace". More ominously for the majority of higher education institutions, the report says "Larger research-intensive universities are likely to gain most from the new regionalisation of higher education, and, moreover, are the only ones likely to gain significantly from the reorganisation."

Engaging with Europe

In April I wrote about the European Research Area, the ‘borderless continent’ that the founding fathers of the European Union hoped to achieve. The ERA can best be seen as a work in progress, but that shouldn’t stop academics from engaging with it and trying to influence its future direction and focus.

To many, the European Commission can seem like an impenetrable technocracy. If you ever hear a commissioner speak, it will do little to dispel this notion. I wrote once about the basic components of a Commission presentation. The vital elements are PowerPoint slides dense with text, detailed maps of the process by which directives have been agreed, preferably involving an incomprehensible flowchart, lots of clip art, and a peppering of unexplained acronyms.

Playing in the Sand

In the last decade sandpits have become a familiar part of the academic landscape. For those of you not familiar with the concept, they are a way for academics to get together in a hotel far from the everyday pressures and demands of their university lives, to think about their research and work with others to develop new ideas.

Last week we invited Knowinnovation to run a sandpit for the new research consortium between the universities of Kent, Essex and East Anglia: Eastern ARC. It took a long time to get to this point as I had started talking to them about the possibility of such an event in October 2013.