A version of this article first appeared in Funding Insight in December 2021 and is reproduced with kind permission of Research Professional. For more articles like this, visit www.researchprofessional.com
How to nudge your draft-bid reviewers to deliver their sharpest insights
Rowan Atkinson as Edmund Blackadder, in Blackadder the Third. The one tiny aspect of the document that he wants to change is ‘the words’.
Have you ever asked a colleague for feedback on a draft grant proposal and been told: “looks fine to me, but it’s not really my area”? Not particularly helpful, is it? Well, in this article I’m going to help you avoid ever hearing those words again, by detailing how you can raise your chances of getting better feedback on draft bids. (Next week, I’ll try and help you avoid ever uttering those words again with some tips on giving good feedback.)
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.
