Understanding how funding panels usually work can help you write a more competitive application, says Adam Forristal Golberg.
A version of this article first appeared in Funding Insight in November 2021 and is reproduced with kind permission of Research Professional. For more articles like this, visit www.researchprofessional.com
When it comes to research funding, I’ve been poacher and gamekeeper. I’m a research development manager, but I’ve also served two terms as a public member of a research funding panel, and I still review the odd proposal. I’m going to draw upon that experience to try to explain how funding panels tend to work. They obviously vary depending on funder and scheme. So treat this article as based on a true story, but with certain scenes invented for dramatic purposes.
A version of this article first appeared in Funding Insight in July 2021 and is reproduced with kind permission of Research Professional. For more articles like this, visit www.researchprofessional.com
What to pay attention to when consulting call documentation
‘Make sure you read the call spec’ is one of the most frequently dispensed pieces of advice from grants managers and research offices alike. It might sound mind-numbingly obvious but, still, a not insignificant proportion of applicants to most funding schemes—especially the smaller ones—won’t have followed it and their chances of success will be slim to none.
While most applicants won’t make such an elementary error, it can still pay to unpack what following this apparently self-evident advice actually entails. Knowing how call literature is usually written and presented, what to look out for and how to read it can, in the final analysis, make the difference between your bid sinking and swimming.
I’ve got an idea for a professional development programme for research development managers, and I’m interested to see if there’s (a) the appetite; and (b) the funding to make it work.
I’m a qualified coach, and I’ve experience with individual coaching, but also group coaching. I’ve also got around nineteen years of experience in research development, and I’m wondering about putting those things together and offering short programmes of group coaching for research development staff.
What would that look like in practice? Well, I’m still working on that, but roughly….
Me, ringing the bell after the end of my treatment.
This post was supposed to be an account of how my cancer came back, how I went through chemo, and how I came out the other side. Followed by a request for sponsorship (in aid of Cancer Research UK) for my latest act of folly, which is to try to get fit enough to run the Robin Hood Half Marathon in six weeks time. My hope was that the post would be informative, honest, informative, and amusing in places… you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll learn… that sort of thing.
It was going to feature such gems as that time the ceiling (tile) collapsed, and nearly hit the healthcare assistant changing my hospital bed. About the chap in the bed next to me, whose otherwise pleasant conversation took a weird and somewhat fascist turn. The family member of another patient who took one look at me and told me that I was too young to be in that ward. My children, who found – and continue to find – my lack of hair a source of amusement. The expression on another parent’s face when my child proudly announced that “daddy has to have a special medicine that’s so powerful that it makes all his hair fall out.” Feeling so fatigued and tired that I couldn’t stay up even for the exit poll on election day. That day when I was so far gone with fatigue, I just sat staring into space, unable to do anything. Nausea. My corrupted sense of taste.
But this post isn’t, it turns out, going to be like that. The above paragraph is probably as close as it’s going to get. Except for the begging for charity sponsorship. You better believe you’re getting that bit.
A version of this article first appeared in Funding Insight in February 2022 and is reproduced with kind permission of Research Professional. For more articles like this, visit www.researchprofessional.com
How to select bids when funders restrict the number that each university can submit
Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), The Judgment of Solomon (1649), oil on canvas, 101 x 150 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.
One of the most awkward challenges in research development is responding to a ‘restricted’ funding call that only permits a limited number of applications per university. This requires an internal selection process. I’m going to share some of the things I do when I set one up. I don’t have all the answers, and I’d be interested to hear what others do, via twitter, or email or the comments.
This article refers primarily to funding schemes with a hard limit on application numbers. In the UK, that includes the Leverhulme Trust’s major calls and the Academy of Medical Science’s Springboard Awards. Some of the suggestions may also be relevant to panels for schemes with a ‘soft’ limit. These typically don’t set a formal limit on application numbers, but require universities to have a process to manage demand, submit only their most competitive applications, and not support others. There are good arguments for saying that we should be doing this sift anyway, if only to prevent our researchers wasting time and effort.
