Fundermental Top 10 of 2014

Last year I compiled a list of the top ten posts on Fundermentals, based on page views. As we inch towards Christmas, and before the deluge of the REF, I reckon it's time to do the same for 2014.

Eyes on the Prize

Prizes are, by their nature, divisive. For every fan of 12 Years a Slave, there’ll be someone who swears that The Wolf of Wall Street was a better film and should have won the Oscar. Or Dallas Buyers Club, or Gravity. There might even be people who hold a candle for Philomena. Possibly. So I knew that introducing a research prize at the university would be controversial.

The idea had originally come from an academic. The university had a suite of prizes already, from teaching to green impact and from enterprise to student participation, but there had never been any for research. This, the academic said, was perverse. If we were serious about research, we should have been highlighting and rewarding excellent work.

I felt he had a point, so together we set about drafting a prize scheme.

Essential Elements of a Good Application, 2014

Last week we revisited the 'essential elements of a good application' in the first Grants Factory workshop of the 2014/15 season. 

I wrote an extensive post on last year's event, and I don't want to rewrite all of the points I noted there. These still stand. If anything, they are more relevant as ever as the success rates for the Research Councils take a dip. Instead I wanted to pick out some of the points that I might have skimmed over, or note those that were raised additionally.