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...

Feedback from the Social Sciences Mock Panel

Well, another day, another Grants Factory event. Yesterday it was the turn of a Social Sciences 'mock panel', which gave academics in the Faculty (and beyond) the opportunity to test drive their applications, and understand some of the pressures, the issues, and the difficulties that real peer review panels operate under.
The chair for the event was Prof Peter Taylor Gooby, who has been involved in a number of funder panels, and was able to give useful insight into how they work. Some of the points he raised included:

• it helps if your project can 'press' both theory and practice buttons. Show that your project will be useful to both academics (and your discipline more broadly), as well as having applications outside of academia;
• For the ESRC, you only have 6 pages for your Case for Support. Make sure you get on to the methods/design/analysis section as quickly as possible. As a broad rule of thumb, you should be on to the methodology by p2. Funders want to know what you're actually going to be doing during the project.
• Try and get a balance of qualitative and quantitative research. Both can inform each other, and you can avoid being shot down in flames by a panelist who only works with one or the other.
• Be aware of - and be honest about - any weaknesses or potential difficulties. They will be picked up straight away by the panelists, so it's good to be up front, to demonstrate that you recognise them, and to show that you have in place mechanisms to overcome any problems in the research methodology.
  

Further mock panels are coming up, for EPSRC, the EC, and the Humanities. The Social Sciences one will run again in the Spring - date to be confirmed. Let me know if you would be interested in coming along to any of these.

Nuffield Relaunches Small Grants Scheme

After a hiatus of almost a year, the Nuffield Foundation has re-launched its Social Science Small Grants Scheme. Previously the remit of the scheme was wide open, but they've decided to be more prescriptive about its areas of interest, and have increased the amount available. The Foundation is now offering grants of up to £15,000 for research projects in line with the Foundation’s areas of interest including:

• Children and families
• Education
• Law and society
• Older people and their finances
• Government, law-making and constitutional change
• Poverty and disadvantage
• Cross national comparisons
• Reviews of government policy or practice
• Development in Africa

Applications will be considered until the end of 2010. Full guidance and further information is available from the Foundation’s website.

The also mention, in the letter to Deans, that they are 'likely to take a different and
more strategic approach to fostering social science research capacity from 2011, to provide
funding that will increase quantitative research skills and other research skills in other areas
of long-term interest to the Foundation through some sort of centres competition. We
expect to have reached a final decision and make a public announcement in the autumn of
2010.'