Category: Frustrations

Grant Writing Mistakes part 94: The “Star Wars”

Have you seen Star Wars?  Even if you haven’t, you might be aware of the iconic opening scene, and in particular the scrolling text that begins

“A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away….”

(Incidentally, this means that the Star Wars films are set in the past, not the future. Which is a nice bit of trivia and the basis for a good pub quiz question).  What relevance does any of this have for research grant applications?  Patience, Padawan, and all will become clear.

What I’m calling the “Star Wars” error in grant writing is starting the main body of your proposal with the position of “A long time ago…”. Before going on to review the literature at great length, quoting everything that calls for more research, and in general taking a lot of time and space to lay the groundwork and justify the research.  Without yet telling the reader what it’s about, why it’s important, or why it’s you and your team that should do it.

This information about the present project will generally emerge in its own sweet time and space, but not until two thirds of the way through the available space.  What then follows is a rushed exposition with inadequate detail about the research questions and about the methods to be employed.  The reviewer is left with an encyclopaedic knowledge of all that went before it, of the academic origin story of the proposal, but precious little about the project for which funding is being requested.  And without a clear and compelling account of what the project is about, the chances of getting funded are pretty much zero.  Reviewers will not unreasonably want more detail, and may speculate that its absence is an indication that the applicants themselves aren’t clear what they want to do.

Yes, an application does need to locate itself in the literature, but this should be done quickly, succinctly, clearly, and economically as regards to the space available.  Depending on the nature of the funder, I’d suggest not starting with the background, and instead open with what the present project is about, and then zoom out and locate it in the literature once the reader knows what it is that’s being located.  Certainly if your background/literature review section takes up more than between a quarter of the available space, it’s too long.

(Although I think “the Star Wars”  is a defensible name for this grant application writing mistake, it’s only because of the words “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away….”. Actually the scrolling text is a really elegant, pared down summary of what the viewer needs to know to make sense of what follows… and then we’re straight into planets, lasers, a fleeing spaceship and a huge Star Destroyer that seems to take forever to fly through the shot.)

In summary, if you want the best chance of getting funded, you should, er… restore balance to the force…. of your argument. Or something.

ESRC success rates 2013/2014

The ESRC Annual Report for 2013-14 has been out for quite a while now, and a quick summary and analysis from me is long overdue.

Although I was tempted to skip straight through all of the good news stories about ESRC successes and investments and dive straight in looking for success rates, I’m glad I took the time to at least skim read some of the earlier stuff.  When you’re involved in the minutiae of supporting research, it’s sometimes easy to miss the big picture of all the great stuff that’s being produced by social science researchers and supported by the ESRC.  Chapeau, everyone.

In terms of interesting policy stuff, it’s great to read that the “Urgency Grants” mechanism for rapid responses to “rare or unforeseen events” which I’ve blogged about before is being used, and has funded work “on the Philippines typhoon, UK floods, and the Syrian crisis”.  While I’ve not been involved in supporting an Urgency Grant application, it’s great to know that the mechanism is there, that it works, and that at least some projects have been funded.

The “demand management” agenda

This is what the report has to say on “demand management” – the concerted effort to reduce the number of applications submitted, so as to increase the success rates and (more importantly) reduce the wasted effort of writing and reviewing applications with little realistic chance of success.

Progress remains positive with an overall reduction in application numbers of 41 per cent, close to our target of 50 per cent. Success rates have also increased to 31 per cent, comparable with our RCUK partners. The overall quality of applications is up, whilst peer review requirements are down.

There are, however, signs that this positive momentum may
be under threat as in certain schemes application volume is
beginning to rise once again. For example, in the Research
Grants scheme the proposal count has recently exceeded
pre-demand management levels. It is critical that all HEIs
continue to build upon early successes, maintaining the
downward pressure on the submission of applications across
all schemes.

It was always likely that “demand management” might be the victim of its own success – as success rates creep up again, getting a grant appears more likely and so researchers and research managers encourage and submit more applications.  Other factors might also be involved – the stage of the REF cycle, for example.  Or perhaps now talk of researcher or institutional sanctions has faded away, there’s less incentive for restraint.

Another possibility is that some universities haven’t yet got the message or don’t think it applies to them.  It’s also not hard to imagine that the kinds of internal review mechanisms that some of us have had for years and that we’re all now supposed to have are focusing on improving the quality of applications, rather than filtering out uncompetitive ideas.  But is anyone disgracing themselves?

Looking down the list of successes by institution (p. 41) it’s hard to pick out any obvious bad behaviour.  Most of those who’ve submitted more than 10 applications have an above-average success rate.  You’d only really pick out Leeds (10 applications, none funded), Edinburgh (8/1) and Southampton (14/2), and a clutch of institutions on 5/0, (including top-funded Essex, surprisingly) but in all those cases one or two more successes would change the picture.  Similarly for the top performers – Kings College (7/3), King Leicester III (9/4), Oxford (14/6) – hard to make much of a case for the excellence or inadequacy of internal peer review systems from these figures alone.  What might be more interesting is a list of applications by institution which failed to reach the required minimum standard, but that’s not been made public to the best of my knowledge.  And of course, all these figures only refer to the response mode Standard Grant applications in the financial year (not academic year) 2013-14.

Concentration of Funding

Another interesting stat (well, true for some values of “interesting”) concerns the level of concentration of funding.  The report records the expenditure levels for the top eleven (why 11, no idea…) institutions by research expenditure and by training expenditure.  Interesting question for you… what percentage of the total expenditure do the top 11 institutions get?  I could tell you, but if I tell you without making you guess first, it’ll just confirm what you already think about concentration of funding.  So I’m only going to tell you that (unsurprisingly) training expenditure is more concentrated than research funding.  The figures you can look up for yourself.  Go on, have a guess, go and check (p. 44) and see how close you are.

Research Funding by Discipline

On page 40, and usually the most interesting/contentious.  Overall success rate was 25% – a little down from last year, but a huge improvement on 14% two years ago.

Big winners?  History (4 from 6); Linguistics (5 from 9), social anthropology (4 from 9), Political and International Studies (9 from 22), and Psychology (26 from 88, – just under 30% of all grants funded were in psychology).  Big losers?  Education (1 from 27), Human Geography (1 from 19), Management and Business Studies (2 from 22).

Has this changed much from previous years?  Well, you can read what I said last year and the year before on this, but overall it’s hard to say because we’re talking about relatively small numbers for most subjects, and because some discipline classifications have changed over the last few years.  But, once again, for the third year in a row, Business and Management and Education do very, very poorly.

Human Geography has also had a below average success rate for the last few years, but going from 1 in 19 from 3 from 14 probably isn’t that dramatic a collapse – though it’s certainly a bad year.  I always make a point of trying to be nice about Human Geography, because I suspect they know where I live.  Where all of us live.  Oh, and Psychology gets a huge slice of the overall funding, albeit not a disproportionate one given the number of applications.

Which kinds of brings us back to the same questions I asked in my most-read-ever piece – what on earth is going on with Education and Business and management research, and why do they do so badly with the ESRC?  I still don’t have an entirely satisfactory answer.

I’ve put together a table showing changes to disciplinary success rates over the last few years which I’m happy to share, but you’ll have to email me for a copy.  I’ve not uploaded it here because I need to check it again with fresh eyes before it’s used – fiddly, all those tables and numbers.

Six writing habits I reckon you ought to avoid in grant applications…..

There are lots of mistakes to avoid in writing grant applications, and I’ve written a bit about some of them in some previous posts (see “advice on grant applications” link above).  This one is more about writing habits.  I read a lot of draft grant applications, and as a result I’ve got an increasingly long list of writing quirks, ticks, habits, styles and affectations that Get On My Nerves.

Imagine I’m a reviewer… Okay, I’ll start again.. imagine I’m a proper reviewer with some kind of power and influence…. imagine further that I’ve got a pile of applications to review that’s as high as a high pile of applications.  Imagine how well disposed I’d feel towards anyone who makes reading their writing easier, clearer, or in the least bit more pleasant.  Remember how the really well-written essays make your own personal marking hell a little bit less sulphurous for a short time.  That.  Whatever that tiny burst of goodwill – or antibadwill – is worth, you want it.

The passive voice is excessively used

I didn’t know the difference between active and passive voice until relatively recently, and if you’re also from a generation where grammar wasn’t really teached in schools then you might not either.  Google is your friend for a proper explanation by people who actually know what they’re talking about, and you should probably read that first, but my favourite explanation is from Rebecca Johnson – if you can add “by zombies”, then it’s passive voice. I’ve also got the beginnings of a theory that the Borg from Star Trek use the passive voice, and that’s one of the things that makes them creepy (“resistance is futile” and “you will be assimilated”)  but I don’t know enough about grammar or Star Trek to make a case for this.   Sometimes the use of the passive voice (by zombies) is appropriate, but often it makes for distant and slightly tepid writing.  Consider:

A one day workshop will be held (by zombies) at which the research findings will be disseminated (by zombies).  A recording of the event will be made (bz) and posted on our blog (bz).  Relevant professional bodies will be approached (bz)…

This will be done, that will be done.  Yawn.  Although, to be fair, a workshop with that many zombies probably won’t be a tepid affair.  But much better, I think, to take ownership… we will do these things, co-Is A and B will lead on X.  Academic writing seems to encourage depersonalisation and formality and distancing (which is why politicians love it – “mistakes were made [perhaps by zombies, but not by me]”.

I think there are three reasons why I don’t like it.  One is that it’s just dull.  A second is that I think it can read like a way of avoiding detail or specifics or responsibility for precisely the reasons that politicians use it, so it can subconsciously undermine the credibility of what’s being proposed.  The third reason is that I think for at least some kinds of projects, who the research team are – and in particular who the PI is – really matters.  I can understand the temptation to be distant and objective and sciency as if the research speaks entirely for itself.  But this is your grant application, it’s something that you ought to be excited and enthused by, and that should come across. If you’re not, don’t even bother applying.

First Person singular, First Person plural, Third Person

Pat Thomson’s blog Patter has a much fuller and better discussion about the use of  “we” and “I” in academic writing that I can’t really add much to. But I think the key thing is to be consistent – don’t be calling yourself Dr Referstoherselfinthethirdperson in one part of the application, “I” in another, “the applicant” somewhere else, and “your humble servant”/ “our man in Havana” elsewhere.  Whatever you choose will feel awkward, but choose a consistent method of awkwardness and have done with it. Oh, and don’t use “we” if you’re the sole applicant.  Unless you’re Windsor (ii), E.

And don’t use first names for female team members and surnames for male team members.  Or, worse, first names for women, titles and surnames for men. I’ve not seen this myself, but I read about it in a tweet with the hashtag #everydaysexism

Furthermore and Moreover…

Is anyone willing to mount a defence for the utility of either of these words, other than (1) general diversity of language and (2) padding out undergraduate essays to the required word count? I’m just not sure what either of these words actually means or adds, other than perhaps as an attempted rhetorical flourish, or, more likely, a way of bridging non-sequiturs or propping up poor structuring.

“However” and “Yet”…. I’ll grudgingly allow to live.  For now.

Massive (Right Justified) Wall-o-Text Few things make my heart sink more than having to read a draft application that regards the use of paragraphs and other formatting devices as illustrative of a lack of seriousness and rigour. There is a distinction between densely argued and just dense.  Please make it easier to read… and that means not using right hand justification.  Yes, it has a kind of superficial neatness, but it makes the text much less readable.

Superabundance of Polysyllabic  Terminology

Too many long words. It’s not academic language and (entirely necessary) technical terms and jargon that I particularly object to – apart from in the lay summary, of course.  It’s a general inflation of linguistic complexity – using a dozen words where one will do, never using a simple word where a complex one will do, never making your point twice when a rhetorically-pleasing triple is on offer.

I guess this is all done in an attempt to make the application or the text seem as scholarly and intellectually rigorous as possible, and I think students may make similar mistakes.  As an undergraduate I think I went through a deeply regrettable phase of trying to ape the style of academic papers in my essay writing, and probably made myself sound like one of the most pompous nineteen year olds on the planet.

If you find yourself using words like “effectuate”, you might want to think about whether you might be guilty of this.

Sta. Cca. To. Sen. Ten. Ces.

Varying and manipulating sentence length can be done deliberately to produce certain effects.  Language has a natural rhythm and pace.  Most people probably have some awareness of what that is.  They are aware that sentences which are one paced can be very dull.  They are aware that this is something tepid about this paragraph.  But not everyone can feel the music in language.  I think it is a lack of commas that is killing this paragraph.  Probably there is a technical term for this.

So… anyone willing to defend “moreover” or “furthermore”? Any particularly irritating habits I’ve missed?  Anyone actually know any grammar or linguistics provide any technical terms for any of these habits?

ESRC success rates by discipline for 2012-13

Update: 2013/14 figures here.

WA pot of gold at the end of a rainbowith all of the fanfare of a cat-burglar slipping in through a first floor window in back office of a diamond museum, the ESRC has published its Vital Statistics for 2012-13, including the success rates by academic discipline.  I’ve been looking forward to seeing these figures to see if there’s been any change since last year’s figures, which showed huge variations in success rates between different disciplines, with success rates varying from 1 in 68 for Business and Management and 2 in 62 for Education compared to 7 of 18 for socio-legal studies.

The headline news, as trumpeted in the Times Higher, is that success rates are indeed up, and that “demand management” appears to be working.  Their table shows how applications, amount of money distributed, and success rates have varied over the last few years, and has figures for all of the research councils.  For the ESRC, the numbers in their Vital Statistics document are slightly different (315 applications, 27% success rate) to those in the Times Higher table (310, 26%) , possibly because some non-university recipients have been excluded.  The overall picture is hugely encouraging and is a great improvement on 14% success rates last year.  And it’s also worth repeating that these figures don’t seem to include the Knowledge Exchange scheme, which now has a 52% success rate.  This success rate is apparently too high, as the scheme is going to end in March next year to be replaced with a scheme of passing funding directly to institutions based on their ESRC funding record – similar to the EPSRC scheme which also delegates responsibility for running impact/knowledge exchange schemes to universities.

For the ESRC, “demand management” measures so far have largely consisted of:
(i) Telling universities to stop submitting crap applications (I paraphrase, obviously…..)
(ii) Telling universities that they have to have some kind of internal peer review process
(iii) Threatening some kind of researcher sanctions if (i) and (ii) don’t do the trick.

And the message appears to have been getting through.  Though I do wonder how much of this gain is through eliminating “small” research grants – up to £100k – which I think in recent times had a worse success rate than Standard Grants, though that wasn’t always the case historically.  Although it’s more work to process and review applications for four pots of 100k than for one of 400k, the loss of Standard Grants is to be regretted, as it’s now very difficult indeed to get funding for social science projects with a natural size of £20k-£199k.

But what you’re probably wondering is how your academic discipline got on this time round.  Well, you can find this year’s and last year’s Vital Statistics documents hidden away in a part of the ESRC’s website that even I struggle to find, and I’ve collated them for easy comparison purposes here.  But the figures aren’t comparing like with like – the 2011/12 figures included the last six months of the old Small Grants Scheme, which distorts things.  It’s also difficult (obviously) to make judgements based on small numbers which probably aren’t statistically significant. Also, in the 2011-12 figures there were 43 applications (about 6% of the total) which were flagged as “no lead discipline”, which isn’t a category this year.  But some overall trends have emerged:

  • Socio-legal Studies (7 from 18, 3 from 8), Linguistics (6 from 27, 5 from 15) and Social Anthropology (5 from 18, 4 from 5) have done significantly better than the average for the last two years
  • Business and Management (1 from 68, 2 from 17) and Education (2 from 62, 2 from 19) continue to do very poorly.
  • Economics and Economics and Social History did very well the year before last, but much less well this year.
  • Psychology got one-third of all the successes last year, and over a quarter the year before, though the success rate is only very slightly above average in both years.
  • No projects in the last two years funded from Environmental Planning or Science and Technology Studies
  • Demography (2 from 2) and Social Work (3 from 6) have their first projects funded since 2009/10.

Last year I speculated briefly about what the causes of these differences might be and looked at success rates in previous years, and much of that is still relevant.  Although we should welcome the overall rise in success rates, it’s still the case that some academic subjects do consistently better than others with the ESRC.  While we shouldn’t expect to see exactly even success rates, when some consistently outperform the average, and some under-perform, we ought to wonder why that is.

On strike again, and why you should join a union

"Freedom for the University of Tooting!"
“Freedom for the University of Tooting!”

Last time I took strike action was almost two years ago, and I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now. Nevertheless, then  (as now) I think strike action is justified, and that if you’re not already in a union, then you really ought to be.  It’s in your own narrow personal interest, and it’s in the general interest.

I think the facts are pretty well established. University staff have had a pay cut in real terms of 13% since October 2008, and what’s on offer – 1% – is still well below the rate of inflation. While I’m sure it’s accurate to point to the large surpluses that many universities have been generating, I suspect that their existence is largely due to understandable caution in what has been a period of tremendous change – undergraduate fees, real terms reductions in research income, the new REF, fluctuations in overseas student numbers etc.  It would be weird if institutions hadn’t built up something of a financial buffer as an insurance policy.  But they can surely do better than 1%, especially now that we (apparently) in economic recovery and many of the recent changes are starting to bed in.

I hesitate to complain about my own pay. I regard it as a privilege to work where I do, and to do the job I do.  When I go to bed on a Sunday night, I don’t do so dreading Monday morning.  And the fact that I don’t dread Monday morning means I’m probably better off than the majority of people who either do dread it or who have no job to go to.  My salary is more than adequate for my relatively modest needs, especially with no dependants.  A 13% pay cut in real terms isn’t – I think – particularly unusual in the current climate, and
I’m sure other sectors could tell a similar story.  Another reason I hesitate to complain about my own pay is that the kind of society I’d like to live in is one that would be more equal – more Rawlsian – and I suspect that a more equal society is one in which I’d probably be less well off in brute financial terms, but would be better off in all kinds of other ways.

But inequality in higher education is getting worse.  While there’s apparently no money for pay rises at the rate of inflation for everyone else, there is apparently money for pay rises for those off the official salary scales – vice chancellors, and other senior professors.  I understand that the REF has distorted labour markets with big names attracting big bucks.  I know that it’s not the case that not paying the best paid even more will save sufficient money to pay everyone else better, but if there is money to spare, it should surely be targeted – in these times of austerity – at those in our sector who are the least well paid.

So although I can’t back a below inflation offer of 1% all round, I would be personally be prepared to vote to accept below-inflation at my grade for a short while longer if it meant above inflation for the least well paid.  At inflation to keep pace with soaring living costs, above inflation to claw back some of the lost ground.  I don’t have the details to hand, but I believe similar deals have been struck before, and this might be a sensible thing to look at.  If the employers were interested in negotiating.  Which they don’t appear to be.

However, even for the better paid there’s only so long we can accept below inflation pay rises.  A point often made is that academic staff (and many academic related staff) are often late starters in terms of pensions and mortgages.  Graduates at 21, Masters graduates at 22, PhD graduates at 25 or 26, permanent employment at 26 or 27.  Although in many disciplines the norm is several years of post-doc fixed term contracts first.  So five or six extra years as a student, during which time it’s very unlikely that any pension contributions will be made or much saving done for a mortgage deposit.

So why should you join a union? Because if you don’t, and you work in the HE sector, and you went to work today, what you are is a free rider.  You didn’t lose a day’s pay, but if and when (I suspect when), we get a better pay settlement, you’ll get it too.  Union members don’t get that money back, or get any extra.  When the unions negotiate on your behalf about various local issues (from parking to disciplinary procedures), you benefit too. I guess one response to this is to congratulate yourself on your cleverness in getting the benefits without any of the responsibilities, but personally I’d be embarrassed and ashamed to be in that position. I accept that some may have principled objections to a particular union (and I agree that UCU did not cover itself in glory over discussions about an academic boycott of Israel) or have negative experiences in the past, but in general terms I think the onus is on those not in a union to explain why not.

But even if your moral compass is orientated in such a way that you don’t see any problem with being a free rider, it’s still fairly clear that it’s in your own best interests to be in a union. Because my experience at least one institution (not where I work at the moment) and what I hear and read about many other places is that there’s a de facto two tier system in place in terms of how people are treated.  Put simply, if you in a union and have union representation, or if you’re fortunate enough to have a friend/colleague who you can take to meetings to help you fight your corner who can be similarly effective, you will be treated better than if you go without union or equivalent representation.  I’ve seen it myself when asked to accompany friends who weren’t in the union to meetings.  I’ve seen attempts to pull stunts that break internal procedures, very probably employment law, and very definitely the principles of natural justice.  They don’t do it to union members, or those who have equivalent representation.  Maybe not all institutions are like that, but everything I’ve heard indicates that we should all assume that ours is exactly like that unless we have strong evidence to the contrary.

You may think that you’ll never need the union’s help, never need union representation.  But if you’re in an academic-related or administrative/technical/managerial role, then the fact is that restructures and change and cost savings are a fact of life.  I’ve worked in Higher Education for twelve years now, and on average there’s been a restructure that’s affected me every four years.  In the first two, my job either disappeared or would ultimately disappear.  The third passed me by, and arguably left me in a stronger position, but was a worrying time.  In neither of the first two cases did the restructures have anything to do with me or my performance in my role – it was just a case of someone looking at an organogram, looking at costs, and deciding they wanted to make their mark by moving the pieces around a bit.  Anyone in the way was collateral damage.

You might also think that if you behave yourself, keep your head down, and do a good job, you’ll never end up needing union support in a dispute with your employer or with a senior colleague.  Again, I think that’s naive.  My own experience was doing my job too well, and having the temerity to apply to have my job regraded, only to find that a shadow system was being used that bore little relation to the published criteria.  It’s tremendously stressful to be in dispute with your employer and/or colleagues, and having union support gives you someone to rant at, someone to advise you, to set your expectations, and to speak up for you at meetings which can end up – by accident or design – being very intimidating.

Ultimately, union membership won’t save you if you’re in the way of a restructure, or if management wants you out for whatever reason.  But what they will do is make sure that the rules are followed, that your rights are respected, and that you have access to sensible and timely advice about the situation you’re in.  Maybe you’re the kind of person who would back yourself to do all this for yourself, but my advice would be not to underestimate just how stressful these situations can be, and how useful having someone from the union in your corner can be, even if you conduct most of the meeting yourself.

So… back to work tomorrow, and back to dealing with the work left undone today.  As we’re now withdrawing goodwill and working to contract, I’ve got less time than normal to get everything done….