UKRI Delivery Plan Top Trumps

For us research policy nerds, the past week has been like Christmas. Each of the constituent parts of UK Research and Innovation, as well as the all seeing eye that watches over them, have all produced their Delivery Plans.

These flesh out the - ahem -  'Strategic Prospectus', which was published last year. How long are these valid for? Well, that's moot, but at least until the next Comprehensive Spending Review (so 2019-20) after which it will 'update our 'near-term actions' to reflect the financial years covered in the SR.'

Dude, Who's Got My Twitter?

@NIHR, apparently. Or possibly a forgotten Britpop band

It's a fast moving world in the Twittersphere, and you have to be quick to bag the Twitter handle that is, well, your birthright. Some, such as @BBSRC, were super sharp and got theirs [shame they won't be around much longer - Ed], although that might be more down to the implausibility of any other person/organisation having that acronym. But what about others who were - um - a bit slower or have common arconyms? Dude, who's got my Twitter?

RCUK Scrabble

It's holiday season, even for the good folks at Death Star Avenue. Now read on.

A holiday cottage on the west coast of Wales. Rain is lashing against the windows, and the casements are rattling. It's August. A group of RCUK apparatchiks are huddled around a game of Scrabble. It's clear they're playing an unusual variant of this family favourite in which only acronyms can be used.

RCUK Decent Success Rate Shock!

'100% you say? Well I'm sure
I could make my Chaucer
project fit  'Environmental Change''

Now here's a good news story that the Research Councils have been remarkably slow to crow about: success rates for most are looking surprisingly healthy. Looking at the latest published stats (RCUK has gathered links to them all here, including a broken AHRC one. *sigh* Best go direct, here), they give a lie to the current feeling that RCUK success rates have fallen so low that you may as well buy a ticket to EuroMillions. The  success rates for the five councils that have produced them for 2011-12 range from 21-41%, and average a healthy 31%.

Of course, there are a number of factors which have buoyed the figures:

• firstly, some Councils have either introduced, or are strongly encouraging, some form of demand management. This is almost certainly the reason for EPSRC's 41% success rate.
• secondly, other success rates are skewed by 100% success rates for some managed programmes, such as the 6 out of 6 that the AHRC's Researching Environment Change Follow Up scheme garnered. This helped the AHRC achieve an eye popping 40% success rate last year.
• finally, many have seen application numbers drop, not necessarily because of demand management, but perhaps because applicants have become demoralised by rejection, or their attention has been diverted elsewhere, such as on the REF, or teaching , or (perish the thought!) impact activities.

I've collated the figures I can find, and the full table of application numbers and success rates can be found (for Kent staff only, I'm afraid) on our SharePoint site.

RCUK Publishes Impact Case Studies

Last week RCUK published impact case studies. The intention of this was, I think, twofold: to highlight to external bodies (such as the Treasury) that public money is being well spent, and to highlight to potential applicants examples of best practice. Having read them all now I feel that they might have succeed at the latter, but not necessarily the former. Which is a shame, as I do think that it's crucial to make the case for the importance of research to government and the wider world.

The case studies are split into four categories: ‘policy’,‘business’, ‘public engagement’ and ‘voluntary and charitable’. Some appear in more than one category. RCUK had a huge pool of projects to choose from for their fourteen examples. The Research Councils give out grants for some 2,500 projects each year.As such, you would expect them to be spectacular examples of their kind, but I wasn't convinced.

Unsurprisingly, the business-related ones have the clearest impact and it is easy to make the case with these: licensing agreements, patents, and new technology with applications that will benefit society. All good. Things become a bit less clear in the other three categories which, to my mind, are somewhat weaker. Or rather, I think it’s very difficult to make the case. Many talk about ‘stakeholder engagement’, which of course is good, and of feeding into the development of policies and working practices. Which is also good. Others talk about their tweets and blogs, their public lectures and even their jazz compositions. Okay, so I know it's very hard to try and quantify the effect that these activities have had, but I would have thought that RCUK might have been able to provide more hard evidence as to the effect their funded research is having on society.

Nevertheless, I think the positive that potential applicants should take from this is that expectations are low and broad. If you can demonstrate that you are able and willing to engage with end users, to talk to school children and put on public events, then you will easily have met the expectations of your future paymasters. And, you never know, with your conceptual art spin-offs and children’s books sub-projects, you could well be up there on the RCUK website in years to come.

Understanding and Applying to The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), 10 May

We will be running an introduction to the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) on 10 May. Lunch and refreshments will be provided.

A draft programme for the day is given below. You are welcome to come along to the whole day, or drop in for part of it. It will be taking place in the Senate Building at the University of Kent's Canterbury Campus. The event is open to academics at both Kent and Christ Church, as well as clinicians working in the NHS. However, I would appreciate it if you could let me know if you intend to come so that I can get an idea of the numbers attending.

What is the NIHR?

Government funding for health-related research is distributed through two main routes: the Medical Research Council (MRC), and the NIHR. The MRC deals with more fundamental research, the NIHR with research that will affect the NHS, including social care and public health research. Its role is to develop research evidence to support decision making by professionals, policy makers and patients.

Last year it gave out £210.5m of research grants through a range of programmes. This event will be a chance to understand how these differ and fit together, and to hear from those who have had experience of working for or with the NIHR.

Programme

10:00 Registration and Coffee

10:30 Introduction
Prof Peter Jeffries (Director of KentHealth) & Bridget Carpenter (Co-Director Business, NIHR Research Design Service South East)

10:45 Decoding the Acronyms: What is the NIHR?
Moderated by Phil Ward (Research Funding Manager, University of Kent)

An Overview of the NIHR

Ann Deehan (Infrastructure Workforce Senior Lead, Dept of Health)

Central Commissioning Facility (CCF)

Angie Borzychowski (Assistant Director, Research for Patient Benefit)

11:30-11:45 Tea & Coffee

NIHR Evaluation, Trials & Studies Coordinating Centre (NETSCC)
Liz Tremain (Senior Programme Manager, NETSCC)
Trainees Coordinating Centre (TCC)
Dawn Biram (Information & Evaluation Manager, TCC)
Comprehensive Local Research Network (CLRN)
Ian Akers (Portfolio Manager, CLRN Kent & Medway)

12:45 Case Study: Applying for and Managing an NIHR Grant
A ‘warts and all’ experience of an NIHR-funded project by its Principal Investigator

13:15-14:00 Lunch

14:00 Getting Down to Business: Issues to Consider when Applying
Six parallel sessions on preparing a good proposal

Essential Elements
-Patient & Public Involvement
-Governance & Sponsorship

Adding Value
-Strengthening your proposal through health economic evaluation

-Considering statistical issues

15:30-15:45 Tea & Coffee

Framing it Right
-Using the right language
-Calculating costs

16:30 Close & Application Clinic
The formal programme will close at 16:30, but the RDS SE team of research advisors will be available to provide individual advice on proposals. Booking is essential: please contact Annette King if you would like to book a slot.

Impact: the Wellcome View

I went along to the ESRC Seminar Series on Impact at UCL yesterday. It was a very interesting event, and wasn’t what I had feared: either an evangelical sermon by the funders, or a diatribe by academics. Instead, we were presented with four different takes on impact: the first, from the Wellcome Trust, the second from the American funder the National Science Foundation (NSF), the third from the Netherlands on research assessment, and fourth from the coal face by a practising scientist. I’ll cover two of these – the Wellcome Trust and NSF – in this and the next post.

The Wellcome Trust spends £650m per year, roughly equivalent to the MRC. Liz Allen, the Senior Evaluator Adviser at the Trust, outlined the challenges faced and tools used in understanding and quantifying the effect of this funding.

Wellcome, of course, does not have to justify itself to government; however, it does have a duty to report to the Charity Commission, which gives it tax breaks, and to understand what does and doesn’t work.

She highlighted a number of challenges in assessing impact in the biosciences:

• the time frame involved: for instance, it took Robert Edwards 18 years from first developing the technique for IVF to the first successful ‘test tube baby’
• the serendipity of science: for instance, Alec Jeffreys has been quoted as saying ‘our discovery of DNA fingerprinting was of course totally accidental...but at least we had the sense to realise what we had stumbled upon.’
• Attribution and contribution: there is often a long and diverse list of people and organisations involved in the evolution of a piece of research. For instance, John Todd had funding from Wellcome, MRC, JDRF and NIH. In addition, there is the ‘ripple effect’, the value of negative findings, and the ‘counter factual’ question: what would have happened if x didn’t discover y?

So pinning down impact is not easy. However, Allen, who was keen on quotes, quoted Charles Babbage: ‘errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.’ It’s better to do something with limited data than to do nothing at all. Wellcome’s attempt to ‘do something’ includes:

• Understanding impact in terms of ‘progress’ rather than ‘success’;
• With this in mind, the Trust looks for traditional indicators of progress, including: publications, people and training, products and interventions, software and databases, engagement with communities, policy, advocacy and influence, funding, and awards and prizes.
• In addition, it has explored ‘new’ indicators, such as article-level metrics (through software such as PLoS), post-publication peer review (such as F1000), clinical guidelines (NICE has recently digitised all citations used for clinical guidelines, and the Trust can check who has been involved), and the separate contributions of all members of a research team (via the ORCID initiative).
• The Trust is also making use of ‘softer’ indicators, such as case studies. However, it recognises the dangers inherent in this. Allen once again turned to another quote, this time from John Allen Clements: ‘when you ask the memory to reconstruct daily events from forty years ago, you’ve got to be appropriately cautious.’ The Trust needed to make the award winners know what it might be interested in right from the start, so that they can note and monitor it.
• Wellcome Trust Career Checker. This is a recent development, and aims to track the career choices and progression of cohorts of individuals after their funding has finished. What have they gone on to do?

Allen finished by highlighting the work that others had done in trying to quantify the effect that medical research had had. The Lasker Foundation had commissioned research that suggested that it had had a 20 fold return, so that for every $1 spent there was $2.17 in health benefits. A similar report in the UK showed that ‘for every £1 of public money invested in cardiovascular disease and mental health research, a stream of benefits is produced equivalent ot earning 39p and 37p respectively each year in perpetuity.’

Which is quite compelling. Sure, assessing the effect of biomedical research is a tough call, but Allen rounded off with a quote from Mary Lasker: ‘if you think research is expensive, try disease.’

Getting Involved with Funders

A number of funders are inviting people to become involved in their decision making. These include the following:

• AHRC - Peer Review College
• BBSRC - Council
• EPSRC - Council
• ESRC – Council
• MRC – Council
• STFC – Council
• NIHR - Programme Advisory Board & Refereeing

Do consider putting yourself forward for these vacancies. Being involved with funders raises your profile, but also gives you the opportunity to influence their policy and direction.

RCUK's New System ROP-ey

Following my previous post, I've heard on the grapevine about some - ahem - 'discontent' with RCUK's Research Outcomes Project (ROP), which is due to go live on 14 November.

Whilst the RCUK is still whistling in the dark about its new system, both the Russell Group and 94 Group have written to RCUK asking them to think again about implementing it in its current form. One person I spoke to said that working with the system 'will make you cry'. Whilst they had issues with MRC's e-Val system, it was user friendly in comparison to the ROP. Apparently the reason that the ESRC-based system was chosen in preference to the MRC one was that it was the cheapest to develop.

The main issue with ROP is that it does not allow 'bulk uploads'. Thus, universities will not be able to centrally load details of all the outcomes from all their RCUK-funded projects. Each academic will have to enter details of the projects separately. Worse still, the new system does not currently have the capacity to link to an institution's own repository - such as the Kent Academic Repository (KAR) - so academics will end up having to enter the data twice.

The result will be that research offices will spend a lot of time chasing academics to fill in their details - individually - and that academics will spend twice as long as they need providing their data - individually. And, if push comes to shove, the academics might decide that they will only provide the obligatory ROP data rather than (say) the requested HEI data, which may foul up institutional preparations for the REF.

There's still a possibility that RCUK will find a way to allow bulk uploads, and they may even find a way of linking to individual institutional repositories. But it's unlikely to do so by 14 November.

There's a Battle Outside and It's Raging

There's a fascinating storm raging at the moment around the walls of the EPSRC citadel. Some of you outside the Engineering and Physical Sciences might not be aware of it, but it has the potential to affect all of your disciplines, because what EPSRC does first, the other Research Councils tend to follow.

This time the EPSRC is 'engineering' their sector. Or, as they would have it, 'shaping our portfolio.' Basically, through their 'Shaping Capability' agenda, they've had a good look at the disciplines within their remit and have decided which should be backed, and which should be quietly shelved.
Now in some ways you can see the logic of this. In strained financial times it may be better to prioritise the important, high quality work that has the potential to make a difference to science globally, as well as nationally bolstering the UK's competitiveness.
However, as you can imagine, those who are adversely affected by this prioritisation are angry about what they see as the fairly arbitrary algorithm by which it has been decided. Have a look at the sub-GCSE graph above. This is known as the 'Bourne Graph'. It is a visual representation of how EPSRC see the relative value of subjects within its remit.
But how were these relative positions decided? What scale is being used along the X and Y axes? Hmm. It's not clear, and EPSRC's reticence on this is not helping. People are thinking the worst. As a York-based organic chemist comments on his blog, 'if one didn't know better you may be forgiven for thinking it had been thought up on the back of a fag packet over a pint in the pub after work.'
Helpfully, he provides a similarly inane graph for his relationship with fruit and vegetables, as follows:

I think the methodology's clear, don't you?
Prof Timothy Gower, another blogger, has tried to work out where they're coming from by deconstructing the newspeak pronouncements to come out of EPSRC.
More seriously, the sector's disquiet has resulted in letters from the chemists, statements from the mathematicians, and articles from the physicists, as well as a call from, well, everybody (in the shape of the Royal Society) to 'pause' the strategy. David 'Smalls' Delpy responded, specifically to the chemists, saying that he felt their pain, but ultimately it was their own fault for getting too much of the budget recently. Or words to that effect. Elsewhere he's poured oil on the troubled waters by saying that the complaints were an 'overreaction', backed up by 'relatively little' evidence.
The storm has been rumbling on since July, and there's no sign of it abating any time soon. If anything, it's growing in strength, and there's hope that, as Dylan said, 'the loser now will be later to win.' Whilst I have sympathy for EPSRC, and believe it acted in good faith, I think this kind of engineering is dangerous and ultimately fruitless.
Remember Robert Edwards, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine this time last year? He had developed in vitro fertilisation, which has led, since 1978, to millions of 'test tube babies.' Well, when he turned to his sector's funder, the MRC, in 1971 they turned him down. At the time his discipline wasn't of interest, as the politics of the day suggested the world was heading for malthusian destruction. If there hadn't been a private funder on hand his research may well have withered on the vine.
His is a cautionary tale. The allocation of research funding shouldn't be left up to politicians and apparatchiks (like me): it should be up to peers and contemporaries to decide what should be prioritised. Only then will the best, bravest and brightest have an equal chance - from whatever discipline.

MRC 'Neither Up Nor Down' Shock

Oh you couldn't make it up. Paul 'Shriek' Jump made it a hattrick in last week's Times Higher by bemoaning the fact that the MRC success rate had - wait for it - stayed the same.

To recap:

• On 1 September Jump suggested that the fall in its success rate reflected badly on the ESRC...
• whereas on 8 September Jump suggested that the rise in its success rate reflected badly on the EPSRC;

Now, with its success rate pretty much static (it actually fell by 1%), Jump was wringing his hands about how badly this reflected on the MRC.

Spookily, in a comment on this blog Adam Golberg had foreseen this scenario almost exactly: 'Next week in the Times Higher: The XRC Research Council announces unchanged success rates. Does this stagnation spell the beginning of the end for the XRC?'

Does he know something we don't? Does he have access to lines of communication which are - frankly - supernatural? Is he, in fact, Robert Johnson?

We should be told.

Guardian Live Chat: Research Funding

I took part in the Guardian’s Live Chat discussion on Friday. It was focussed on ‘Securing Research Funding’, and brought together an impressively diverse panel, including Anne Dixon (MRC), Tennie Videler (Vitae), Nathaniel Golden (ARMA), Jo o’Leary (BBSRC), and Tseen Khoo (RMIT University, Australia), as well as my blogging colleagues David Young (Lincoln) and Adam Golberg (Nottingham).

It was an interesting, but slightly unnerving, experience. Partly this was down to the technology. It took the form of a comments thread, which you needed to update regularly: by the time you’d written and posted a response to one comment, the board had updated with a number of subsequent comments, and the thread was lost.

However, it was also down to the nature of research funding: there are so many issues bubbling up at the moment that the discussion could have been twice as long and still only scratched the surface. Thus, it was slightly superficial and erratic, but interesting none the less.

It kicked off with a discussion of what makes a bad application. Plenty of ideas here, including: lack of novelty; an ill-defined hypothesis; unsuitable methodology; confused design; vague management; insufficient resources and inadequate expertise. The panel emphasised the need to stick to the funder’s guidance, and write a proposal that made clear what the research question was, why it was important, how it was going to be answered, and how the findings were going to be disseminated. Above all, applicants should take time to properly plan and draft their proposal, and try to communicate their enthusiasm for the project.

The moderator, Eliza Anyangwe, then asked what the main issues in research funding were at the moment. The panel licked its lips and piled in. In a wide ranging discussion several issues came to the fore, including: coping with cuts and the ‘Grand Challenges’ at the Research Councils; impact; the removal of many small grant schemes; the push for interdisciplinary projects and 'concentration' of funding; and demand management.

It was interesting to hear that many of the issues in the UK were shared by colleagues in Canada and Australia, and vice versa. Jo van Every from Canada spoke ‘of more strings [being] attached to the money', and ‘of increased pressures on universities to bring in more external funding’, which resulted in ‘competition for the funds available [being] much stiffer and success rates...dropping.’ Similarly, in Australia, Tseen Khoo was dealing with the ERA, which is their equivalent of the REF.

There was also some discussion of provision for early career researchers and postdocs, and the struggle to get into academia, let alone getting on the funding ladder. The panellists generally agreed that ECRs needed to remain mobile – as much as possible – and keep their options open, although they sympathised with those for whom this wasn’t an option.

So what do researchers need in order to succeed in this increasingly difficult environment? Well, a thick skin and a willingness to persevere are important, but academics also need to network and collaborate, and be open to different opportunities.

However, Jo van Every noted that ‘your goal is NOT to secure research funding. Your goal is to do go great work. Funding will help you do ever more great work. Or even greater work.’ Adam Golberg concurred: ‘applying for funding isn't always the right decision for any given individual at any given point in time, and contrary to what some university managers seem to believe (no-one here, I'm sure) it's just [not?] possible for all academics to produce outstanding fundable research ideas to order on a regular basis.’

David Young finished by raising two interesting points: firstly, the discussion had demonstrated that such a forum was useful, and suggested that ARMA consider providing a space for such issues to be shared. Secondly, and more provocatively, he questioned the ‘business-as-usual model’ which has resulted in the difficulties identified during the discussion. It is ‘making life increasingly precarious for early career researchers as well as arguably driving research towards serving the needs of industry first and foremost. Should we just accept this? Is there are mechanism or a space for us to resist?’

That’s fighting talk, but people questioned the will – or the ability to act collectively – that would enable this to happen.

The Guardian will summarise the key points of the Chat in due course, but do browse the comments which are still available here.

UK National Contact Points for European Funding

Ever feel you're in FP7 quicksand? Feel like you're about to drown in euro-speak? The more you struggle, the more desperate your situation? Wish there was someone on hand with a rope and a plank?

Well wish no longer. Believe it or not there's a network of plank and rope handlers out there, ready, willing and - yes - able to pull you out of the mire. They're the UK's National Contact Points (NCPs), and between them have a wealth of knowledge and experience in dealing with the Framework Programme. Their details are available here, but true to the nature of the Grand European Project, this is somewhat muddled and unclear. I've taken this info and cut to the chase: below are contacts - and numbers - that count.

Cooperation Themes

• Energy: Helen Fairclough (Enviros Consulting) 0161 8743636;
• Environment: Chris Barker (DEFRA) 0207 238 1629, or Catherine Holt (Beta Technology) 01302 322633;
• Health: Victoria Brewer (MRC) 0207 670 5418, or Graham Hughes (Beta Technology) 01302 322633;
• ICT: Peter Walters (TUV/NEL) 01932 251260, or Craig Sharp (TUV/NEL) 01355 593836;
• KBBE: Tim Willis (BBSRC) 01793 413247, Chris Barker (details under 'Environment'), or Jane Watkins (Beta Technology) 01302 322633;
• NMP: Alastair McGibbon (TUV/NEL) 01355 593810, or Craig Sharp (details under 'ICT');
• Security: Derek Gallaher 07852 556502;
• SSH: Samantha McGregor (ESRC) 01793 413141;
• Space: Robert Lowson (Beta Technology) 01302 322633;
• Transport: Cliff Funnell (Cliff Funnell Associates) 01243 552921, or Gill Richards (GR Aero Ltd) 01908 583916;

European Research Council

• Jo Frost (UKRO) 00 32 2 2896121;

Marie Curie

• Emma Carey (UKRO) 00 32 2 2305275;

Capacities

• SMEs: Steve Bradley (Beta Technology) 01302 322633;
• Science in Society: Stephanie Remola (ESRC) 01793 413146
• INCO: Kate o'Shea (UK Collaboration on Development Sciences (UKCDS)) 0207 611 8276.

There's a number of others, but I think these are the main ones you will deal with. If anyone comes across a phone number that no longer works, or a responsibility that's changed, drop me a line and I'll update this post.

RCUK Announce Global Uncertainties Fellowships

The AHRC, ESRC, MRC and STFC have announced a call for Global Uncertainties Leadership Fellows. ‘Global Uncertainties’ is a cross council scheme that focuses on global security challenges, and provides research that will help governments, businesses and societies to better predict, detect, prevent and mitigate threats to security, focussing on six core areas:

• Ideologies and beliefs
• Terrorism
• Transnational organised crime
• Cyber security
• Threats to infrastructures
• Countering the proliferation of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) weapons and technologies.

These grants will provide up to three years’ funding for up to 60 per cent of the Fellows’ time with an overall limit of £500,000 (fEC) per grant. 8-10 Fellows will be funded. The proposals should include:

• A programme of activities to help to achieve further focus within one or more of the GU Programme core areas (for example through producing overviews or syntheses of existing research in the area, convening discussion meetings or seminars, leading possible public engagement and media outreach activities).
• A programme of activities to help to build relationships and networks between researchers in the area and between researchers and potential beneficiaries and users of the research, potentially including the business community and/or the public sector and/or the third sector in the UK and internationally.
• A well-defined, high-quality, innovative and ground-breaking research project relevant to one or more Global Uncertainties core areas. The capacity to make, and the possibility of achieving, a significant impact on relevant research fields must be demonstrated. Consideration should also be given to appropriate pathways through which this research might have a significant impact beyond academia.

Across the period of the grant, at least 20 per cent of the Fellow’s time should be expected to be devoted to the first two activities, with the balance of up to 40 per cent for personal research.

Deadline for Expressions of Interest:16.00 on 28 September 2011 by email to global.uncertainties@esrc.ac.uk.

Expression of Interest decisions will be announced in November 2011. Shortlisted applicants will be invited to submit a full proposal by early January 2012, with successful applicants commencing August/September 2012.

ERC Success Rates

Interesting stats from UKRO on the ERC Starting (StG) and Advance (AdG) Grants. There's now been three complete calls for each scheme, and UKRO's statistics show how the success rate for both StG and AdG has risen:

• Starting Grants: 3.3% (2007-8) to 14.9 (2009-10)
• Advanced Grants: 12.7% (2007-08) to 13.2% (2009-10)

Interestingly, the success rates for Grants hosted at UK HEIs is higher than the European average for StG (17.3%), but only marginally so for AdG (13.6%).

Now compare these figures with those published by the ESRC in their Demand Management Consultation Paper on the recent success rates for all the UK Research Councils:

• AHRC: 16%
• ESRC: 17% (small and standard grants combined)
• MRC: 19%
• BBSRC: 22%
• NERC: 24%
• EPSRC: 30% (following the introduction of its blacklisting procedure)
• STFC: 53%

So the ERC success rates aren't a million miles away from the bottom three Research Councils - and the UK Starting Grants are actually the same or better than the AHRC and ESRC. No wonder the ESRC is making moves to introduce demand management measures, and the AHRC is following fast in its footsteps.

Are Friends Electr(on)ic?

The MRC has announced that it will be using the Joint Electronic Submission System (JeS) from now on. The other Research Councils have been using it for some time. Medical researchers may be unsure whether to break out the champagne or the black crepe. Whilst the MRC's own EAA system was far from perfect, JeS does have a habit of bewildering and confusing newcomers. All those sections! All those attachments! Do get in touch if you want a quick tour through the system. Once you get used to it the advantages do begin to become apparent, such as the facility for sharing your application with others.

Incidentally, I was interested to read about Impact in the MRC's announcement. Some of you will remember that the MRC was, at best, agnostic about the merits of predicting the impact of its research. Indeed, one very senior MRC officer once described impact to me as 'bullsh*t'. To them, the impact of their funded research was part of their raison d'etre, and having to explain it beforehand was almost demeaning.

Well, now that they're part of the JeS congregation they have to sing from the same hymn sheet, however much the words stick in their throats. In somewhat cool terms they describe themselves as being part of 'an RCUK project' that would 'encourage researchers to be actively involved in thinking about who could benefit from their research.' Makes the whole impact agenda sound a little like an intriguing play thing, a tentative pilot project that probably won't come to anything. Not the hoop-jumping administrative behemoth it's been for the rest of us for the last couple of years.

Inside the Belly of the Beast: How the Peer Review Panel Works in Practice

A Grants Factory Event

Thursday 3 February 2.00-3.00
Cornwallis Seminar Room 5

The next Grants Factory Masterclass will take place on Thursday 3 February. Prof. Mick Tuite (Biosciences) will talk about the role of the Funding Panel. Mick is an experienced panellist with both research councils (BBSRC) and charities (Wellcome). He is also a highly successful applicant and grant holder. In recent years he has been involved in large scale funded projects from the BBSRC, MRC, Wellcome and European Commission.

Whilst he’s a bioscientist, the way funding panels work is common across all disciplines, and you get the same types of people sitting on them, such as:

• Dr ‘Know it all’: has opinions on all the grants, but actually knows very little;
• Dr ‘Methodical’: knows all the fine detail, but unable to make an informed decision;
• Dr ‘Disorganised’: still reading the applications during the meeting;
  

as well as a host of others. Mick will talk about these, and about how panels work in practice. Understanding how panels work, and what makes the panellists tick, is crucial for getting your project funded, so Mick’s talk will be invaluable to those planning or drafting a proposal.

All are welcome, but do let me know if you intend to come along.

Be Wary of RCUK 'Priorities'

A great report in the press this week, following the announcement that Robert Edwards was to receive the Nobel Prize for Medicine.

As you may be aware, Edwards was the developer of in-vitro fertilisation treatment, which has led, since 1978, to millions of 'test tube babies'.

Now what normally happens when a British Nobel Prize laureate is announced is for one of the Research Councils to jump on the announcement and claim credit. Strangely, all have been a little quiet this time around. Why? Perhaps it's because the MRC originally rejected Edwards application in 1971. This was for a number of reasons, including the government policy at the time that focused on limiting population growth rather than encouraging more. So Edwards had to turn to private sources of funding.

So if your research doesn't fit the current RCUK fads, don't worry: your time will come.

Confused Signals from MRC on Impact

It was a simple question: does the MRC require an Impact Plan (or 'Pathways to Impact', as they're now called), as all the other Research Councils do? The EAA Guidance suggests that in the Justification of Resources you 'need to justify any resources requested to support the impact plan', and the Applicants Handbook has a whole section on how the assessors are going to be checking on societal and economic impact.
But after some digging, and uncertain 'we'll get back to you's when I phoned the MRC, the message came back: no Impact Plan is needed, though the Case for Support does need to give a nod to impact. The sense I get is that the MRC are not entirely on board with the impact agenda, and take the impact of their research as a given.
It will be interesting to see what happens when they go over to JeS system in the autumn, though...

MRC Move to Swindon - Sort Of

It's been announced that the bulk of the MRC's operations will move to Swindon to join its sister councils in Polaris House. However, it's reluctant to abandon London completely, and, whilst it will move out of its Portland Place residence, it will find alternative accommodation in the capital for 90 or so staff dealing with 'science strategy and policy, high-level management of the council's portfolio and funding partnerships.'

The MRC has justified this split by saying that it needs a London base 'to bouild on our collaboration with our partners such as the National Institute for Health Research, as well as providing a London location for use across the research councils.'