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.

STFC: 'Too Narrow a Focus'

An advisory panel has today criticised the STFC for having 'too narrow a focus', Research Fortnight reports.

'For far too long STFC has thrown money at projects within its remit,' complained the 900 page report from the panel. 'Does it not realise that it should be launching expensive, half-baked interdisciplinary programmes?

'It's time it took advantage of RCUK's Priority Generator. Big Science needs this kind of cutting edge, outside-the-envelope thinking. Why fund astronomy and particle physics when you could be creating exciting, dynamic new research in 'Syntax beyond Food', or 'Enlightenment towards Remembrance'?'

No one from STFC was available for comment.

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.

Who's Who

Who: Then

Who: Now

I was very pleased to see that the STFC has in place a former Dr Who as Director of IT and International Strategy. I believe that this is very forward thinking of the Council. After all, you don't get much more international than Gallifrey, and there's not a lot that Dr Who doesn't know about IT.

I hope this is the first of many such appointments. I look forward to Jude the Apostle being appointed to oversee the Shared Services Centre, and Richard Nixon taking over RCUK's 'Open Access' remit.

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.

Life, the Universe and Everything: STFC Publishes Its Roadmap

For anyone who uses Twitter on a regular basis, you know the situation. A gnomic tweet appears on your timeline, and you find yourself having to find out more. In my case it was from the STFC feed, @STFC_matters: 'have you seen the STFC Science Roadmap?' Of course, my natural reaction was to reply with a facetious 'why, have you lost it? I'm sure I saw it in the glove compartment, under that tin of travel sweets.'

But I was intrigued, and wanted to find out more. I like the idea of roadmaps, which provide certainty and direction. I was wondering what directions I could get from the STFC, given that it deals with astronomy, particle and nuclear physics. 'Excuse me mate: could you tell me the way to Alpha Centuri?' 'Sure, no worries: head for Betlelgeuse, take a left at Andromeda and you can't miss it'.

As to certainty, that seems to be something of a moot point in particle physics at the moment, given that the embarrassing lack of the Higgs Boson threatens to undermine all physics. Maybe the Higgs Boson is in the same place as the STFC Science Roadmap? Have they not tried retracing their steps?

Anyway, I thought it would be worth having a look at the Roadmap itself. I'd encourage you all to have a look too. I love it because it conveys that childlike sense of wonder that you have about science, before it's drained out of you at secondary school through boring afternoons watching chemistry practicals going wrong. 'What you should have seen, boys, is an exothermic reaction that created a spectrum of iridescent colour, accompanied by a nuclear boom that ushered in visions of an unseen universe just beyond our reach. If you got a dull, muddy mixture and a muted pop then you have failed to follow your worksheet properly. Have a detention.'

No, the STFC has reignited the majesty of science for me. However, I am slightly surprised at the simplicity of the questions around which the Roadmap is built:

• How did the universe begin and how is it evolving?
• How do stars and planetary systems develop and is life unique to our planet?
• What are the fundamental constituents and fabric of the universe and how do they interact?
• How do we explore and understand the extremes of the universe?

Wow! Surely to get answers to questions of this magnitude it requires a mix of undergraduates, late nights and large amounts of mind altering substances? It would save STFC an awful lot of money and who knows? We may have the answers by dawn. Either that or we'll be overrun with dazed, barefoot students wandering around with guitars, not entirely sure how they got here. Which brings us right back to those key STFC questions...

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.

Changes to NERC Schemes

With all the changes at ESRC, EPSRC, STFC and AHRC, it feels like NERC has been dragging its feet somewhat. Not any more. It's announced that:

• It's cutting its Small Grants.
• Consortium Grants are being cut from two rounds per year to one, and an outline stage will be introduced.

At this stage these kind of changes shouldn't come as a surprise. There's barely a funder left standing that hasn't stripped out its small grants: the ESRC and BA have already done so, and the Royal Society dropped its Conference Grants. Small scale funding is so last year.

NERC does say that 'it will remain possible to submit proposals for small discrete projects, proof-of-concept studies and pump-priming exercises to the Standard Grants scheme, if they exceed the minimum scheme funding level'. That's defined by NERC as '£25,000 for directly incurred costs', which has always struck me as a slightly curious way of defining a lower limit. Why not a minimum that includes directly allocated and, perhaps estates and indirect as well? Whilst £25k may sound like quite a small amount, and way below the £65k maximum for the current Small Grants, when you add in directly allocated, estates and indirect costs you would be coming very close to this figure.

So, in effect, they will not be providing any small scale funding. I tried talking to them about it this morning, but unfortunately the relevant person was away from her desk, but I imagine the reason for cutting the grants is (a) they're getting too many applications and the success rates are plummeting, (b) what they have been funding has tended to be incremental and not paradigm shifting, and (c) universities should be funding it anyway.

Well, up to a point, Lord Cooper. I would suggest, in response, that (a) if you're getting too many applications, it's a sign of popularity, of a scheme that the sector actually wants. How about putting more money towards it and away from the flashy large scale schemes? (b) okay, it's small scale by nature, but then, sometimes research does progress in small increments, and current breakthroughs build on previous knowledge, and (c) universities have the cash?? Ha!

However, something tells me that NERC aren't going to backtrack on the decision, especially when all their sister funders are doing the same. So we need to work in the changed climate. If you want to apply for funding for a small project get in touch with me and I'll help you identify other possible sources of funding, or how to frame your project in such a way that it could fit within NERC's Standard Grants scheme.

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.

STFC Moves to Shared Services Centre

Like the EPSRC, NERC and AHRC before it, STFC is moving to use the Shared Services Centre (SSC). It's warning of some disruption, though not to the submission of applications. Between January and February the Council will not be able to undertake admin related to current grants, such as grant transfers, final reconciliations, extensions and changes in investigators. They'll also be unable to deal with requests to extend the due dates of deliverables (such asstarting certificates, final expenditure statements, final reports etc), so will extend the due date for these automatically and across the board until after the move to SSC.

Research Councils Refocus Priorities

As well as the changes at the ESRC, the other Research Councils have announced changes to their funding priorities in light of the Government's budget allocation, which saw 3% cut from all except the MRC:

AHRC:

• Capital funding will be cut entirely;
• It will ditch the Creative and Performing Arts Fellowships, Practice-led Research Grants and Applied Route KT Fellowships and Catalyst schemes;
  
• It will introduce 4 priorites: digital transformations; translating cultures; care for the futre, and science in culture. In addition, it will invest in 3 areas of 'strategic need': modern languages, design and heritage.
  
• It will also increase investment in cross council programmes, especially 'connected communities', 'living with environmental change' and the 'digital economy'.
  
• It will up its investment in 'impact' activities, including knowledge transfer, and 'creative economy hubs'.
  
• Full Delivery Plan available here.

BBSRC:

• There's a suggestion in the Plan that it will move away from blue skies research: “The intention over this period is to effect a greater alignment of the basic underpinning bioscience investment into the critical strategic priorities within the available funding envelope.”
• Most of the funding cut will be shouldered by research grants (cut by 6%), although fellowships will take a bigger percentage hit (from £9m to £6m);
• As with the other councils, it will plough more into impact/knowledge exchange activity;
• Thus, its priorities will be industrial biotechnology, food security and bioenergy;
• It will also increase its contributions to cross-council programmes;
• Full Delivery Plan is available here.

EPSRC:

• EPSRC is positioning itself as a 'sponsor' rather than a 'funder', so it's seeking to provide more strategic leadership, and encourage collaboration with industry.
  
• Capital funding cut by 50%. The EPSRC wants to see more sharing of facilities as a result;
• It will focus on 4 main themes: maufacturing, energy, the digital economy and healthcare technologies. Funding in these areas will increase over the period, whereas more general responsive mode funding will decrease by c£58m pa by the end of the period (2015);
• Full Delivery Plan available here.

NERC:

• Big cuts to its own institutes;
• However, it will increase external grant funding by £23m by end of period (2015);
• The Plan seems to draw back from international focus, instead emphasising the importance of meeting national objectives;
• It also wants to 'concentrate' funding in fewer organisations, although it already gives 4/5ths of its money to just 25 institutions;
• As with others, it's encouraging more interaction with external organisations, for instance in renewable energy and risk management.
• Full Delivery Plan available here.

MRC:

• MRC was the only Research Council to see an increase in funding.
  
• Much of the income rise is set to come from a change in policy that will see the council keep more of the money it makes from commercialisation. This will be reinvested in developing translational medicine.
  
• Full Delivery Plan is available here.

STFC:

• STFC has split its budget into three streams in order to protect its grants funding from the demands of international activities and currency fluctuations, from which it has taken a hit in the past;
• Full Delivery Plan available here.
  

RCUK to Concentrate on Large Grants

This week's Times Higher is reporting on how the Research Councils are aiming to 'concentrate cash'. You can see their point: last time round they went for 'salami slicing', spreading the pain so that everyone got a couple of groats and a rotten potato, which they had to eke out whilst shelving their big projects.

Wellcome has already gone down the route of selecting the few, of course, and STFC have said they're going to do something similar. There are noises about EPSRC following suit, and rumours from the BBSRC about limiting the number of proposals each university can submit. Meanwhile the ESRC are talking about ditching their Small Grants scheme for all but earliest of early career researchers.

However, concentrating funding on the few is not without its detractors: as THE reports, some 'have pointed out that the efficiency of research groups tends to drop when they grow beyond a certain size.' So big doesn't necessarily mean good.

There's also the question of maintaining morale, especially for young academics. If there's nothing for small project or pilot studies, it will be easy for them to become disillusioned. Worse still, if the Councils concentrate on what they think are the current strategic priorities, there'll be no fostering of future (as yet unrecognised) priorities.

The comments that follow the THE piece are illuminating. Almost all make the point that some of the best research comes from small grants, which give investigators the opportunity to explore risky and tentative avenues, whilst larger grants tend to stick to more incremental developments of understanding.

Let's hope the Councils take these thoughts on board and don't slavishly try to follow what the government wants.

STFC: Changes to its Grant Schemes

After its consultation earlier this year, the Science and Technology Funding Council (STFC) has decided to implement changes to its grants schemes. The existing system of standard and rolling grant mechanisms will be replaced by a single consolidated grant scheme containing core and non-core staff post funding. Core staff posts would be those key posts identified by the grants panel as being crucial for long term support of research activities.

What does that mean? Well, time will tell. But it looks like they're mixing and matching elements of Wellcome's funding of the big stars of the reserarch firmament, and EPSRC's 'demand management'.

The main features will be:

• One consolidated proposal per department (or equivalent) per subject area submitted every 3 years;
• Core staff posts could be funded up to 4 years, non core staff posts up to 3 years (but with flexibility to spend over 4 years using the existing rules for applying for a grant extension);
• An individual academic can only be supported for exploitation on a maximum of one consolidated grant.

To be honest, I haven't entirely got my head around this. However, STFC say that doing things this way will reduce the number of grant applications submitted over 3 years from ~600 to ~110. So you can see where they're coming from. But we'll have to wait for the dust to settle a little before decided on the effect this will have.

Details on the key features of a consolidated scheme and the other Panel recommendations can be found in the full report (PDF - link opens in a new window).

CSR: Good, Bad, or Ugly?

The dust has not yet settled, but the commentators are already trying to work out whether the Comprehensive Spending Review was good, bad, or indifferent for research in the UK. It's certainly a lot better than some of the scare stories we heard beforehand, which suggests that the government was canny in managing expectations.

In the Review it stated that 'a ring-fence will be maintained by BIS to ensure continuity of investment in science and research.' Which sounds good, until you realise that that will mean a 10% cut in real terms. The only area whose budget will be maintained in real terms is the MRC, as the government has made Health a priority.

You can almost hear the collective sigh of relief as everyone concerned with UK research dares to look again at government funding. Both Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society, and Imran Khan, director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering (Case), have cautiously welcomed the news.

However, there are still some nerves jangling out there, and we're not out the woods yet. We have to see the detail, and the effect the cuts will have on QR funding. Will it lead to a concentration of funding on research intensive (i.e. Russell Group) universities? Is STFC for the chop? The next few months and weeks will tell.

RCUK Moon Rocks Kidnapped

A delicious story reported by Research Fortnight: apparently the rocky road to development of the Research Councils' 'Shared Service Centre' (SSC) has just got rockier. Bills have - allegedly - gone unpaid, to such a degree that the courier TNT refused to deliver to Polaris House, including a consignment of 'irreplaceable' moon rocks, destined for the STFC. Oh, you couldn't make it up.

Elsewhere various NERC facilities have been blighted by unpaid electricity and telephone bills, with bailiffs beating down their doors (sort of. Come one, with a story like this there's room for a little extra colour) and impounding computer equipment.

Whilst officially putting a brave face on it, dismissing these moon rock shenanigans as 'a few minor hiccups', off the record some on Death Star Avenue are saying that 'the SSC will never pay for itself - not in a million years.'

Don't you love it? I await the next installment with glee.

STFC: Consultation on Future Grant Options

The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) has been reviewing the way it distributes research funding. It now wants to find out what you think of the possible options. These are:

• Option 1: 1-3 year Standard Grants;
• Option 2: Additional 6 year Core Grants. This option would provide a degree of funding stability for key generic “core” staff (technical, engineers, IT and administrative staff);
• Option 3: 5 year Rolling Exploitation Grants alongside Standard Grants (the current system). STFC believe that, with the anticipated cuts and the lack of flexibility this option offers, the level of support/number of grants that could be funded would be at a significantly reduced.
  

The consultation form will be available from here next week and will close at 4pm on 6th September 2010.

STFC: Committee & Panel Vacancies

A number of vacancies have arisen for outstanding individuals to become members of STFC's Committees and Panels, as listed below.
The vacancies have arisen, or will be arising, due to the normal rotation of membership on:
Science Board - 3 vacancies
The Particle Physics, Astronomy and Nuclear Physics Science Committee (PPAN) - 4 vacancies
The Physical and Life Sciences Science Committee (PALS) - 3 vacancies
The Projects Peer Review Panel (PPRP) - 8 vacancies
The Nuclear Physics Grants Panel (NPGP) - 2 vacancies
The Particle Physics Grants Panel (PPGP)
Theoretical - 2 vacancies
Experimental - 2 vacancies
The CERN Fellowship Panel
The Science in Society Advisory Panel (SiS) - 2 vacancies
The Education, Training and Careers Committee (ETCC) - 4 vacancies
If you wish to nominate yourself or a colleague please complete our online form.
The closing date for these posts is Monday 22nd March 2010. More detail on their website.