RCUK Grants to be Delayed 'Until the First of Never'

A successful Research Council applicant awaits his grant.

Following on the heels of the BBSRC's announcement that it would be delaying the start of responsive mode grants until after 1 January 2016, the umbrella organisation for the Research Councils, RCUK, has gone ones step further. In a press release written in crayon it stated that all seven of the Councils would delay the start of grants 'until the first of never'. 

'In order for the Research Councils to manage their budgets effectively,' ran the statement, '[and] allowing for additional investments whilst also maintaining their responsive mode commitments and success rate, we are intending to not actually hand out any money.'

The Life of McKinsey, Nurse and Brian

The People's Review of the Research Councils.
Or is it the Popular Research Council Review?

Earlier this month it became clear that the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills had commissioned management consultants McKinsey to review its budget and recommend where cuts could be made. At the same time the Nurse Review is ongoing.

Now read on.

The sewers below Death Star House. A group of revolutionaries, freedom fighters and management consultants are talking in urgent whispers.

McKinsey (for it is he): Once in the building, timing will be of the essence. There's a Research Council feast later in the evening, so we must move fast. And don't wear your best sandals. Turning left here, we enter the Geoffrey Crossick Memorial Sewer, and from there proceed directly to the hypocaust. This has just been retiled, so consultants: careful with those weapons! We will now be directly beneath Rylance's audience chamber itself. This is the moment we strike!

Interdisciplinary Kent: Premiere, 5 Sept 2015

An Eastern ARC interdisciplinary sandpit in May

The University of Kent was founded on strong interdisciplinary principles. It harnessed the mood of the time by questioning the siloed nature of learning, and the college structure was an attempt to encourage both staff and students in diverse disciplines to meet and interact. Whilst the departmentalisation of the seventies and eighties led to the loss of some of this serendipitous freedom, the ethos remained. The size of the University, the range of subjects and the concentrated campus encourages academics to meet others outside of their specialism.

What Does £5bn Buy You?

Buddy, can you spare a £5bn?

Earlier this week the Higher Education Statistics Agency announced that income from research grants and contracts totalled £5.08bn in 2013-14.

This is an impressive amount, but if you were a Russian oligarch and had a spare £5bn to splash, what else could you spend it on, if you didn't want to bankroll the cost of pushing forward the boundaries of knowledge? It's always useful to be prepared should you ever be asked, so here's the Fundermentals cut-out-and-keep guide:

Going Mobile

'The ERA? Isn't that like a European remake of Avatar?'

As regular readers of this column will know I’m something of a data geek. I don’t profess to a huge expertise, but I’m fascinated by the statistics underlying all the applications and awards we handle.

It’s like discovering the secret patterns that explain the world, which goes back to my love of semiotics. So when a colleague presented me with slides from the European Research Council outlining ‘indicative statistics’ from its Starting Grants competition last year, I was in heaven.

What interested me most was not the success rates, which have never been great for the ERC (they average about 10-15 per cent, with a low point in the first round of 3.4 per cent); rather, it was the mobility.

Wanted: An Eastern ARC Officer

The Eastern Arc. No, not that one. 

I know I've been quiet for the past three weeks, but that's because I've been on holiday. Yes, it was lovely, thank you. But now back to work with a bang, and one of the first things on my to do list is to recruit an Eastern ARC Officer.

Now some of you may be wondering what an Eastern ARC Officer is. You might be forgiven for thinking it's some kind of forest ranger patrolling the mountains between Kenya and Tanzania. Nothing that exciting I'm afraid: the Eastern Academic Research Consortium (ARC) is a new collaboration between Kent, Essex and UEA to build on natural links between the three universities.