Leverhulme Fellowships: Notes from a Panellist

Prof Davina Cooper

Last week we ran a Grants Factory session on Leverhulme Trust Fellowships. Prof Davina Cooper from Kent Law School offered some thoughts from her time on the Research Awards Advisory Committee which administers a number of Leverhulme’s fellowship schemes, and my colleague Brian Lingley provided some notes from the session below. 

Grants Factory: Engaging with Politicians & Policy Makers

As part of this year's Grants Factory programme, we will be holding a session on engaging with politicians and policy makers.

Academics are increasingly being urged to produce "impactful" research but how do you actually achieve that impact? One key route could be to engage with politicians and policy makers. Governments (of all political persuasions) need research results and advice from experts from a wide breadth of disciplines to help develop good, evidence-based, policies.

In this event, Kate Anderson, from the Parliamentary Outreach Service will discuss how Parliament uses academic research and the ways that you can engage with Parliament using your own work. Kate will be joined by Professor Jagjit Chadha from the School of Economics. Jagjit will share his extensive experience as an adviser to the Bank of England and the Treasury, to provide an insight into how this relationship works in reality.

The session is taking place this Thursday (19 March) between 12-2pm. It is free, open to all Kent staff, and lunch will be provided. However, do let Brian Lingley know if you are planning to come along so I can make sure the room and catering are sufficien

ESRC Success Rate Drops to 10% for July Open Call

'Swindon, we have a problem'

My colleague Brian Lingley drew my attention to a rather alarming set of data from the ESRC last week. The scores and funding outcomes published in November show that it received 144 responsive mode applications for July. Of those, only 14 were funded, giving a success rate of 10%.

Is this an anomaly? It is certainly less than the 25% ESRC average for 2013-14 given in the Times Higher round up published at the same time. More alarming, perhaps, was the number of high quality applications which didn't make it past the funding cut off point, which was in the 8-8.9 score range. In fact, there were more unsuccessful proposals in this range than there were successful ones.

Thus, according to ESRC's own definitions, it has had to turn away more than half of the 'excellent proposals which are of significant value, and are highly likely to make a very important scientific contribution and/or will significantly enhance the development of the applicant's academic career.'

Two New Funding Officers

With recent changes in Research Services, we've recruited two new Funding Officers.

Dr Helen Leech has started as the temporary Research Funding & Contracts Officer for Medway. She will be initially based at the Canterbury campus while she is trained in Research Services, but do feel free to contact her if you are in Medway to set up a meeting or to talk about research funding issues.  

Meanwhile, Brian Lingley will be taking over full responsibility for the Social Sciences. He is joining us from Kent Innovation and Enterprise (KIE), where he was responsible for helping academics with enterprise-related schemes, such as the ESRC Follow on Fund. He will be a huge asset to the office, and I would encourage you to get in touch with him with any questions or queries you have about getting research funding.

And me? With Helen and Brian starting it will allow me to concentrating more on cross-disciplinary initiatives, on providing events and training that are relevant to all faculties (such as the Grants Factory), and on championing and strategically developing research funding at Kent. So you’ve not heard the last of me yet...

TSB: What's It All About?

David Bott, the Director of Innovation Programmes at the Technology Strategy Board, visited the University today to give an overview of the background and the ethos of the organisation. Innovation, he said, had become a talisman for many. But what does it mean, and how does the TSB facilitate and support it?

Put simply, innovation is the process of turning ideas into money. Sounds easy enough, but innovators face a number of problems:

• Investment is often too little or too late;
• Innovation is inherently disruptive, and change has to be effectively managed;
• Long term trends aren't always apparent;
• Infrastructural support is often complex or inefficient;
• For better or worse, the government is a huge player and needs to help rather than hinder.

The TSB, then, was founded four years ago to help overcome these challenges by:

• fostering a better environment for innovators;
• reducing the financial risk;
• signposting market trends;
• facilitating collaboration and networking;
• feeding back to government.

Since its foundation it has developed into a body with around 130 staff, who between them have some 1700 years of business experience. So they're commercially focused, and understand the needs of business. The TSB has around £300m to distribute annually, and rather than identifying surefire winners it identifies areas of potential growth and capacity.

How? Well, predominantly by talking to government and analysing the needs of the market. Based on this, the TSB's priorities are:

• Low carbon vehicles;
• Assisted living;
• Low impact buildings;
• Detection and identification of infectious agents;
• sustainable agriculture and the food chain;
• stratified medicine.

In practice, it distributes its funding as follows:

• Through consortia, via a standard (2 stage) or fast track (1 stage) funding scheme. Neither of these should be as time consuming as those for the Research Councils, and David suggested a 2-3 month turnaround was the norm. They also fund feasibility studies, workshops and sandpit events;
• Through individuals, via Knowledge Transfer Partnerships and grants for research and development.
• Knowledge Transfer Networks;
• Missions, to spread the word about innovation in the UK;
• Centres.

If you want to find out more about the TSB and whether it's right for you, contact my colleague Brian Lingley in Kent Innovation & Enterprise who can answer your questions and support you in developing a proposal for them.