Recycling your Proposal

Paper, glass, metal...but where's the slot for proposals?

Given the shrinking success rates, it makes sense to consider whether - and where - you should recycle your funding proposal. At the penultimate Grants Factory event yesterday Prof Ray Laurence and Prof Peter Taylor-Gooby encouraged people to consider doing this, but sounded a note of caution.

• Most applicants would consider recycling an application because they are passionate about the project and want to get it funded. However, their passion might blind them to its shortcomings. Make sure you take on board the feedback offered with the rejection. A dose of tough love will make your new application stronger. 
• Similarly, a rejection might be a good opportunity to step back from your project and really think about why you're doing it. Are you passionate about the project, or have you just got on the 'funding treadmill', believing you should be submitting funding bids without really thinking whether it's what you want. If you're just doing it through a sense of obligation it's actually 'hugely depressing' when you get the funding.
• If you are serious about getting funding, and are willing to take on board feedback, be alert to the different guidelines between the funders. It's easy to assume they're all much of a muchness, but there are key differences, and funders get angry with 'lazy' resubmissions from elsewhere.
• Think imaginatively. In many disciplines there are a limited number of funders to whom you can submit essentially the same project. You might have to think about carving up the project into smaller sub-projects, or seek funding for a pilot to demonstrate potential which will, in the long term, strengthen your hand. Sit down and consider your project, dividing it up into activities for which funding is essential, and those for which it is desirable. Alternatively, if your application was for a visiting fellow, say, you could think about expanding the scope of the project to a network, which would increase the possible sources of funding, and potential value of exchanges.
• Finally, consider collaboration. Not only will this change the nature of your project, and potentially strengthen it, but it may also open up alternative avenues - for example if your collaborators are in different countries. 

The final session this year is an ECR Network meeting, looking at 'balancing the conflicting demands of academia'. Get in touch if you want to come along.

Grants Factory - 'Recycling your Proposal'

The penultimate workshop in this year’s Grants Factory programme will look at how to recycle your proposal.

Preparing a research funding proposal takes a huge amount of time and work. Having prepared and submitted an application, it makes sense to make the most of it by reusing your work for alternative funders. But is this possible? If so, what is involved in doing so? 

This workshop will be led by Professors Ray Laurence (SECL) and Peter Taylor-Gooby (SSPSSR). Both have had considerable experience in drafting applications, and reusing them in part or whole with a range of funders. They will be talking about their experiences, identifying what they had to do in each case, and in what finally worked. Attendees are encouraged to bring along their proposals – at whatever stage – so that the group can look at what potential they have to be developed for alternative funders.

Please note the change of date from that advertised: it will take place on 29 May, not 22nd.

Places are free and all are welcome, but do let me know if you intend to come. Tea and coffee will be provided.

Constructing a Realistic Project

Projects need great ideas and to be well thought through, realistic and fully costed to maximise the chance of funding.  At the fourth Grants Factory event last week Prof Elizabeth Mansfield (SMSAS) outlined a process that could help applicants in developing such a project. She started off by tracing a continuum: at one end there was routine, incremental research; at the other there was world peace, cancer cures and ‘theories of everything’. Most people aspire to the latter, but it is unlikely that funders will provide funding for it. Similarly, if it’s too incremental, the proposal will be rejected as boring, “business as usual”.

Instead, applicants need to direct their creativity and enthusiasm to find a worthwhile long term aim, a driving force, in the believably achievable part of the continuum. But what is your driving force?  If it's promotion or fame, it's likely your lack of real interest in the research will make the proposal feel hollow.  No, the driving force has to be a commitment and an intense interest in something important to you.

The next step is to think how you would ultimately want to be ‘assessed’, that is, what your criteria for success are. What do you want the lasting achievement of the project to be? What would satisfy you?  This process tells you what your short term aims need to be, and the activities you will need to achieve them. What methodology? What outputs? What do you want in your papers, web pages, performances? Theory, philosophy, data collection, analysis, computations, textual analysis,  experiments...

The next step is working out the resources you need to fulfil these. These might include staff time, equipment, travel and subsistence. For staff, you should think what kind of person (and at what level) you want. You should also think what would make it attractive to them; what professional development opportunities are there for them?

In addition, you should think about the time frame and milestones for your project. How will it fit together? How will you manage your team to ensure the milestones are met? What are you going to do if you do not meet these milestones? You absolutely need a Plan B!

Prof Peter Taylor-Gooby (SSPSSR) spoke from experience and added some detail to this outline. For instance, when the project has formed in your mind and you’re beginning on the application itself, make sure that you’re ‘tuned in’ to the language of the call or the scheme. Look at the guidance and pick out key words. Make sure that those key words appear in your proposal. Once you’ve prepared the draft, remove the title and show it to a wide range of people. Ask them what they think it’s about. If they’re not able to say, or give wildly varying answers, you need to redraft, to keep the language simple, and to concentrate on the essence of your project.

The second half of the session was an opportunity for those in the audience to discuss the issues raised in the first. Ultimately proposals need to reach a certain quality threshold to be considered. However, above that it can be a lottery, and applicants need to do everything in their own control to shorten their odds.

Hand outs and images of the diagrams that Elizabeth used are available, with these notes, on the SharePoint site.

Grants Factory: Designing a Realistic Research Project

28 November  2012, 2-4pm

Cornwallis NW Seminar Room 6 (Directions and map here)

The next Grants Factory event is aimed at early career researchers (ECRs), but is open to all. Led by Prof Peter Taylor-Gooby (SSPSSR) and Prof Elizabeth Mansfield (SMSAS), it will look at how to construct a realistic research project.

Designing a research project can be a daunting prospect, and issues you need to address may include choosing the right methodology, selecting participants or including appropriate material, addressing ethical issues, managing staff, identifying milestones, working with collaborators, and disseminating your findings. Profs Taylor-Gooby and Mansfield have had considerable experience in designing projects in very different areas: Taylor-Gooby works in social policy, Mansfield in applied mathematics. However, their experience will be relevant to academics in all disciplines.

The event is free, and refreshments will be provided, but do let me know if you intend to come along.

The full Grants Factory programme is available on the SharePoint website, together with slides and notes from all recent events.

Upcoming Grants Factory Events

Two upcoming events that any right-thinking applicant would be foolish to miss.

• Big Questions, Big Projects (1 Dec, 12pm-2pm). With small grant funding fast disappearing, academics need to look to larger funding and start think ambitiously. Prof Jon Williamson, a philosopher in SECL, and Prof Liz Mansfield, a mathematician in SMSAS, have both had experience of developing larger projects in areas where these aren’t the norm. They will be running this workshop on developing interesting research ideas into more substantial research projects.
• Inside the Grants Committee (7 Dec, 12pm-2pm). Prof Peter Taylor-Gooby (SSPSSR) and Prof Mick Tuite (Biosciences) will give an honest insight into how peer review panels work, the characters, the processes – and the politics. Peter has sat on ESRC panels, Mick on BBSRC and Wellcome panels: between them they have a wealth of knowledge on how different funders work. This will be a chance to learn from their experience and frame your application in a way that ‘works’ for the panel.

To take part, just complete the simple on-line form with your name, School and the workshops you'd like to attend.

2011-12 Grants Factory Programme Announced

A new programme of Grants Factory events is now available for 2011/12. Each of the themed workshops addresses a different aspect of the research funding process and is led by a senior Kent academic with a track record in winning (and awarding) research grants.

Autumn Term

• Thurs 1 December 12-2pm Big Questions, Big Projects (Prof Elizabeth Mansfield, Prof Jon Williamson)
• Weds 7 December 2-2pm Inside the Grants’ Committee (Prof Peter Taylor-Gooby, Prof Mick Tuite)

Spring Term

• Weds 15 February TBC Playing the Game: how to understand the rules (Dr Jenny Billings, Prof Sarah Spurgeon)
• Thurs 1 March 10am-12 Writing Better Bids (Prof David Shemmings)

Summer Term

• Weds 9 May TBC Eurovision: the pros & and cons of European funding (Dr Jenny Billings, Prof Simon Thompson)
• Weds 30 May 10am -12 Writing Better Bids (Prof David Shemmings)
• Mon 11 June TBC Winning Fellowship Funds (Prof Paul Allain, Prof Darren Griffin)

All events are suitable for researchers of any discipline and at any career stage and you can find more information here

Please get in touch if you would like more information or want to reserve a place.

Feedback from the Social Sciences Mock Panel

Well, another day, another Grants Factory event. Yesterday it was the turn of a Social Sciences 'mock panel', which gave academics in the Faculty (and beyond) the opportunity to test drive their applications, and understand some of the pressures, the issues, and the difficulties that real peer review panels operate under.
The chair for the event was Prof Peter Taylor Gooby, who has been involved in a number of funder panels, and was able to give useful insight into how they work. Some of the points he raised included:

• it helps if your project can 'press' both theory and practice buttons. Show that your project will be useful to both academics (and your discipline more broadly), as well as having applications outside of academia;
• For the ESRC, you only have 6 pages for your Case for Support. Make sure you get on to the methods/design/analysis section as quickly as possible. As a broad rule of thumb, you should be on to the methodology by p2. Funders want to know what you're actually going to be doing during the project.
• Try and get a balance of qualitative and quantitative research. Both can inform each other, and you can avoid being shot down in flames by a panelist who only works with one or the other.
• Be aware of - and be honest about - any weaknesses or potential difficulties. They will be picked up straight away by the panelists, so it's good to be up front, to demonstrate that you recognise them, and to show that you have in place mechanisms to overcome any problems in the research methodology.
  

Further mock panels are coming up, for EPSRC, the EC, and the Humanities. The Social Sciences one will run again in the Spring - date to be confirmed. Let me know if you would be interested in coming along to any of these.

Notes from the First Grants Factory Masterclass

Notes and slides are available from the first Grants Factory 2010 Masterclass, given by Prof Peter Taylor Gooby, and focused on how applicants can help their research become known to individual funders and make projects appeal to specific schemes.

Prof Taylor Gooby was well place to discuss this. During his academic career, Peter has won over 40 research grants with a total value of over £7 million. This includes several (Research Council and EU) grants worth over £1million each. His work as a panellist means he is also familiar with the decision-making process and 'mindset' of many of key UK funders including the Leverhulme Trust, British Academy, ESRC and Nuffield Foundation.

The notes and slides are available on the Research Services website.