Leverhulme: Volleyball, Pulp Fiction, and Cars

Over at Leverhulme there's been a (minor) shakeup of the Trustees. As you may remember, the Trustees play an important part in deciding which projects get the funding, so it's worth taking a little time to understand who the Trustees are, and what their interests might be. Of course, you can't necessarily play to them but it's worth knowing your audience.

So here are the changes in full. After the death of the Chairman, Sir Michael Angus, last year, Michael Perry ('he has a ruddy face, a strong nose, small eyes and a gently self-deprecating sense of humour that at times can make you feel like you are taking tea with a tense bishop,' muses Management Today) has stepped up to the plate to be chairman, and the Board has been added to with:

• Rudy Markham, a philosopher-king, who tells the FT: “You are one of the few people who can work out where the ship is, because you can read maps, triangulate positions and work out what happens if the ship goes faster or slower. You’re not responsible for the ship, but all that knowledge is useless if you can’t convey to the captain that if you continue at this speed you’ll run out of fuel or hit the rocks."
• Paul Polman: enjoys mountaineering, volleyball and classic car racing. Though not at the same time.
• Stephen Williams: likes 'contemporary art, professional football, pulp fiction or vulgar automobiles'. You can imagine the pre-meeting chats he and Paul have.

There’s also a new Director taking over from Richard Brook. Gordon Marshall, for it is he, is VC at Reading, and will be taking over in October. His background is in the social sciences, and in particular social exclusion, equality of opportunity, distributive justice and the culture of economic enterprise. We've no detail of his interest in cars, vulgar, classic or otherwise, but we'll keep you posted.

So if you've got a project looking at the distributive justice in the crime novels of Sara Paretsky, which involve VI Warshawski driving a muscle car, Steve and Gordo will be on your side and you're well on the way to getting that grant.

Notes from Leverhulme Visit

There was a good turnout in the Senate yesterday to listen to a talk by Prof Sir Richard Brook, Director of the Leverhulme Trust. He was an engaging speaker, and his talk stimulated a good discussion around the philosophy and function of the Trust.

The Leverhulme Trust was founded on a bequest left by the soap baron and founder of the Lever Bros, Lord Leverhulme, in 1925. It had a simple remit to provide ‘scholarships for education and research.’ This has been interpreted broadly since then, and it provides about £50m worth of funding per year for people (rather than infrastructure and equipment) across the sciences, social sciences and humanities.

The Trust Board is the most important body within the Trust. It decides on policy, but it also decides on who gets the awards. So it’s worth spending a little time on understanding its membership and thinking. It is made of ex-Unilever employees, almost all of whom have been the CEO of the company. They are not academics, and many don’t have a background in the UK. So they’re straight talking, straight acting businessmen, often with an international background. With this in mind, the Board should be viewed as:

• Generalist: They don’t understand your discipline. Unless it’s business, of course, in which case you should be very, very careful...
• Decisive: these are businessmen. Don’t flannel. Tell it like it is. And they’ll tell you if they think you’re worth backing.
• Resistive to fashion: don’t bang on about impact, or the REF, or how your research fits with whatever government initiative. It won’t wash. They don’t care.
  

What they do like are projects which have:

• Originality;
• Forward significance;
• Lateral significance (i.e. significance for other disciplines);
• Risk.
  

In addition, the icing on the cake would be:

• A clear individual vision;
• An apparent fresh direction;
• An unawareness of traditional disciplinary boundaries.
  

And whatever you do, make sure your project avoids:

• ‘empire sustenance’: I’ve been ploughing this furrow for the last 30 years, I’ve got a lab of 20 people dependent on me, and this project will sustain them.’ No.
• ‘initiative sustenance’: just because your area has been dropped as a priority by another funder, it doesn’t mean that Leverhulme will be interested.
  

What they’re completely bored with are applicants who:

• Make a claim to status entirely in metrics (eg how many 4* publications, which journals, which award, on which panel etc)
• Think there’s some kind of hidden agenda. Really, there isn’t.
• Talk in jargon. Remember, they’re non-academic generalists.
  

Sir Richard made it clear that Leverhulme was refereshingly unfettered by the political demands of government, and that it ‘tries to avoid rules’. Above all, it wants to fund interesting research that has the potential to make a difference to the individual, to their discipline, and to others more broadly. To this end it doesn’t so much encourage interdisciplinary research as research that is blind to subject distinctions – what he called a ‘disdain for disciplinary boundaries.’

You could almost hear the collective release of breath from those in the room. At last! A funder with the imagination and freedom to fund what they want, untethered from the policy fashions du jour.

If you want to find out more about Leverhulme and its schemes, or would like help with putting together an application, do get in touch.

Leverhulme Visit: Programme Announced

More details are available about the programme for the visit on Monday 4 April by Professor Sir Richard Brook, Director of the Leverhulme Trust.

Professor Brook is a materials scientist whose career has included Chairs at the Universities of Leeds and Oxford, Director of the Max Planck Institute and Chief Executive of the EPSRC before joining the Leverhulme Trust in 2001.

There are two parts to the day: first, a series of talks by Kent award holders that highlight both the international reach of Leverhulme, and a specific area of interest (i.e. understanding the past). They also demonstrate the range of funding that the Trust offers. The second part is Professor Sir Richard's talk about the work of the Trust. All staff and postgraduate students are welcome to both.

Talks by Kent Award Holders

International Collaborations and Research

• 11.00 – 11.15 Alan Story (KLS) Research Project Grant - ‘The North to South transplantation of copyright laws and values'
• 11.15 – 11.30 Professor Donna Landry (School of English) Study Abroad Fellowship - ‘Hoofprinting: Evliya Çelebi and Lady Anne Blunt’
• 11.30 – 11.45 Professor Sarah Spurgeon (EDA) ‘Visiting Professorship for Professor Utkin’
  

Understanding the Past

• 11.45 – 12.00 Professor Ray Laurence (SECL) Research Project Grant - ‘Age and communications in the Roman Empire’
• 12.00 – 12.15 Professor Alan Chadwick (SPS) Emeritus Professorship - ‘Nanoparticles as agents in conservation’
  

Talk by Professor Sir Richard Brook

• 13.15 – 14.30, in the Senate Chamber

If you haven’t already contacted Lynne Bennett, please let her know if you intend coming along to either the award holder talks or the talk by Richard Brook (or both) so that she can get an idea of numbers.

Visit by Director of Leverhulme Trust

Professor Sir Richard Brook, Director of the Leverhulme Trust, will be visiting the University on Monday 4 April. Although the final timings for the programme are yet to be finalised, we are expecting him to give his talk to University staff at about 1.15pm in the Senate Chamber (J12 on this map). There will also be a series of brief talks by Leverhulme award holders from 11.00am (also in the Senate Chamber) – again the programme has yet to be finalised.

My colleague Lynne Bennett will circulate the final programme once it is available. Please let her know if you intend coming along to either the award holder talks or the talk by Richard Brook (or both) so that she can get an idea of numbers.

The picture's not Richard Brook, in case you were wondering...it's the man on whom the Leverhulme Trust is built, William Lever, the 1st Viscount Leverhulme himself.

The Word on the Leverhulme Street

Some news to emerge from Leverhulme recently:

• The Trust will be extending its online application system to include outline applications for Research Project Grants, International Networks and Artists in Residence from 14 July 2010. You will only be able to submit paper versions until 30 June 2010. For further information available click here.


• Leverhulme reckon they'll be big increase in applications to them from the hungry, the hunted, the poor huddled masses fleeing from the swingeing cuts at the Research Councils. They're batoning down the hatches in anticipation and not running any major initiatives in the foreseeable future.


• However, it will be running its Research Programmes this year, and plan to have the following three streams: 1) Resilience 2 ) Intergenerational Justice, 3) Science and Politics.


• The Director of the Trust, Professor Sir Richard Brook, has confirmed that the Trust has never had to turn down a proposal because of a lack of funds. In fact, the 2008 and 2009 Major Research Fellowship Scheme awarded less than its allocation due to the (perceived) paucity of the proposals it received.


• In light of this the Sciences have had the lion's share of Leverhulme funding in recent years. The Trust feels that there has been a lack of excellent proposals in the Humanities and Social Sciences, and would welcome more in these areas.


• Leverhulme has not bought into the whole Impact thing, nor any crowing about league tables or ratings. So avoid references to the RAE etc in your proposals.