Five Ingredients for a Perfect Research Funding Bid

Five ingredients for a perfect recipe.
Photo by Calum Lewis on Unsplash

Is there a formula for a successful funding proposal? Not quite, but there are five elements that you should definitely keep in mind when drafting your application. 

Each year I run a series of Grants Factory training events at the University. A perennial favourite in this series focuses on the essential elements of a successful application.

Over the years a series of academics have delivered this workshop. They have experience as reviewers, panellists and investigators with a wide range of funders, including most of the research councils, Leverhulme, and Wellcome. Their disciplines are diverse, yet there is a broad consensus about the five elements that are essential if you are to succeed in getting funding.

Before I explain what these are, it’s important to think about who the audience is for the proposal. Generally, it’s a eminent academic with a long and distinguished career in her or his field. Generally eminent, generally distinguished - and, as a result, generally time poor.

It’s almost certain that they won’t have had time to look at your application in any detail. They will be flicking through the pile as they travel up to London by train for the prioritisation panel. When they get there each application is unlikely to be discussed for more than a few minutes - if that.

There are often dozens of applications. When I used to work for the Arts and Humanities Research Council, panellists would wheel suitcases full of proposals to the meetings. With this workload, they are itching to find reasons to reject your application. You need to grab their attention and hold it, while also reassuring them about the nuts and bolts of your project.

Tell a story

It’s important for any application to have a narrative. Everyone loves a good story. There’s a wonderful video on YouTube of American author Kurt Vonnegut explaining the basic shape of a story.

He calls this ‘man in hole’. ‘It needn’t be a man and it needn’t be a hole,’ he drawls, but the idea still stands: a person starts off on the level, falls into a hole and gets out again. That’s it, whether it be Beowulf, Jane Eyre or Toy Story 2.

The basic shape is an inverted bell curve. Your proposal should follow the same curve. Give the audience a reason to worry (fall into the hole), but offer them a solution (a way out of the hole) .

Let’s take an example: a proposal for trying to find a cure for Alzheimer’s. This may run like this:

• Context. We’re in a hole, and we should be worried.  Alzheimer’s is a major and growing problem. Currently there are 29.8 million people diagnosed with it worldwide, but this is going to balloon: we’re all getting older. 
• Aim(s): Okay, but I’ve got a plan. We can get out of here. I’m planning to cure Alzheimer’s.
• Objectives: These are the steps necessary to get us out. I’m going to identify the ‘rogue’ protein that causes Alzheimer’s.
• Outputs: How will I know when I’m out of the hole? I’ll have identified the protein and have the information necessary for going forward.
• Outcomes: With this knowledge I can make the most of life on the level. I’ll use it to develop a new drug target for Alzheimer’s

Ask an important question, offer a potential solution that’s specific and cost effective, involving a team whose participation make sense, and have a clear dissemination strategy and impact plan.

Structure

So you’ve mapped out your story. How do you fit this within the structure of an application form?

• The opening lines. This is a small element - maybe five per cent of the overall proposal - but it’s crucial. Within the first two sentences the reader should understand the question, why it's important and how it will deliver a 'step change' in the discipline. This is not the moment to be a shrinking violet; this should not be a 'slow build'. It's the time to offer an accessible, simple message that conveys both the excitement and the timeliness of the project. 
• The background. This should be about a third of your case for support. It summarises what is known and what is not known about the subject. Just as important, it's the opportunity to set out what we must know now, why we must know it now, and why you, as the principal investigator, are the person to discover it. 
• Aims & objectives. Once again, a small element, like the opening lines. Realistically, you shouldn't have any more than one aim and five objectives. Any more and things become a little confused. There should be a logical flow between them, and you should avoid interdependency, which could act as a potential weakness. 
• Work plan or methodology. This should be around half of the case for support. What are you actually going to do? How are you going to achieve the objectives? The methodology should be 'appropriate' to the goals, and you should offer sufficient (but not overwhelming) technical detail. Your work plan should be clearly set out, and achieve that difficult balancing act of being both ambitious and realistic.
• Management and dissemination. Important, but not crucial. These need to make sense, and be appropriate, matching the scale and ambition of the project.

Formatting

It may seem superficial, but it’s not. Think about that panellist on the train rattling up to London for the prioritisation meeting. She’s distracted with a thousand other demands on her time. Make it easy for her to read.  Use a simple font in at least 11 point. Don’t overcrowd margins, and make sure you have clear paragraph breaks. If possible, break up the text with images and diagrams. And, crucially, get it proof read.

Get feedback

In the past there was a tendency, particularly in the humanities and social sciences, to work on a proposal in secret, and submit it without showing it to anyone. I think there was a fear that your idea would be stolen, or that others wouldn’t understand your work.

This is less prevalent these days, but the message bears repeating: get as much feedback as you can. Most universities have some form of internal peer review. Use it, but don’t stop there. Show it to people outside of your discipline. Show it to people outside of higher education. Show it to your friends. Show it to your mum. Does it make sense to them? Does it tell a good story? Can the lay summary be understood (as the Engineering and Physical Sciences Council used to suggest in their guidance) by an intelligent 14 year old?

Be known

This is a longer term issue, but is no less important. Applications from unknown applicants are funded, but there is an inherent nervousness amongst panel members if you're an unknown quantity.

So reassure them with familiarity. Get out there. Go to conferences. Give papers. Lead seminars. Respond to consultations. Raise your profile so that when your application comes to the top of the pile, the panellist on the train will know who you are and have an idea of your work and your achievements.

Tell a good story, structure it well, format it clearly, get it peer reviewed, and raise your profile. Five essential elements. Yes, it may be possible for Nobel laureates to do away with these and still get funding, but for the rest of us mortals, taking on board these five elements will help stack the odds in our favour.

A version of this article first appeared in Funding Insight in November 2018 and is reproduced with kind permission of Research Professional. For more articles like this, visit www.researchprofessional.com

Thanks to all the academics at the University of Kent who have shared their expertise, which forms the basis of this article. They include Prof Mick Tuite, Prof Gordon Lynch, Prof Sarah Vickerstaff, and Prof Simon Thompson.