Frustrations | Cash for Questions: Research funding, policy and development

ESRC success rates by discipline: what on earth is going on?

Update – read this post for the 2012/13 stats for success rates by discipline

The ESRC have recently published a set of ‘vital statistics‘ which are “a detailed breakdown of research funding for the 2011/12 financial year” (see page 22). While differences in success rates between academic disciplines are nothing new, this year’s figures show some really quite dramatic disparities which – in my view at least – require an explanation and action.

The overall success rate was 14% (779 applications, 108 funded) for the last tranche of responsive mode Small Grants and response mode Standard Grants (now Research Grants). However, Business and Management researchers submitted 68 applications, of which 1 was funded. One. One single funded application. In the whole year. For the whole discipline. Education fared little better with 2 successes out of 62.

Just pause for a moment to let that sink in. Business and Management. 1 of 68. Education. 2 of 62.

Others did worse still. Nothing for Demographics (4 applications), Environmental Planning (8), Science and Technology Studies (4), Social Stats, Computing, Methods (11), and Social Work (10). However, with a 14% success rate working out at about 1 in 7, low volumes of applications may explain this. It’s rather harder to explain a total of 3 applications funded from 130.

Next least successful were ‘no lead discipline’ (4 of 43) and Human Geography (3 from 32). No other subjects had success rates in single figures. At the top end were Socio-Legal Studies (a stonking 39%, 7 of 18), and Social Anthropology (28%, 5 from 18), with Linguistics; Economics; and Economic and Social History also having hit rates over 20%. Special mention for Psychology (185 applications, 30 funded, 16% success rate) which scored the highest number of projects – almost as many as Sociology and Economics (the second and third most funded) combined.

Is this year unusual, or is there a worrying and peculiar trend developing? Well, you can judge for yourself from this table on page 49 of last year’s annual report, which has success rates going back to the heady days of 06/07. Three caveats, though, before you go haring off to see your own discipline’s stats. One is that the reports refer to financial years, not academic years, which may (but probably doesn’t) make a difference. The second is that the figures refer to Small and Standard Grants only (not Future Leaders/First Grants, Seminar Series, or specific targeted calls). The third is that funded projects are categorised by lead discipline only, so the figures may not tell the full story as regards involvement in interdisciplinary research.

You can pick out your own highlights, but it looks to me as if this year is only a more extreme version of trends that have been going on for a while. Last year’s Education success rate? 5%. The years before? 8% and 14% Business and Management? A heady 11%, compared to 10% and 7% for the preceding years. And you’ve got to go all the back to 9/10 to find the last time any projects were funded in Demography, Environmental Planning, or Social Work. And Psychology has always been the most funded, and always got about twice as many projects as the second and third subjects, albeit from a proportionately large number of applications.

When I have more time I’ll try to pull all the figures together in a single spreadsheet, but at first glance many of the trends seem similar.

So what’s going on here? Well, there are a number of possibilities. One is that our Socio Legal Studies research in this country is tip top, and B&M research and Education research is comparatively very weak. Certainly I’ve heard it said that B&M research tends to suffer from poor research methodologies. Another possibility is that some academic disciplines are very collegiate and supportive in nature, and scratch each other’s backs when it comes to funding, while other disciplines are more back-stabby than back-scratchy.

But are any or all of these possibilities sufficient to explain the difference in funding rates? I really don’t think so. So what’s going on? Unconscious bias? Snobbery? Institutional bias? Politics? Hidden agendas? All of the above? Anyone know?

More pertinently, what do we do about it? Personally, I’d like to see the appropriate disciplinary bodies putting a bit of pressure on the ESRC for some answers, some assurances, and the production of some kind of plan for addressing the imbalance. While no-one would expect to see equal success rates for every subject, this year’s figures – in my view – are very troubling.

And something needs to be done about it, whether that’s a re-thinking of priorities, putting the knives away, addressing real disciplinary weaknesses where they exist, ring-fenced funding, or some combination of all of the above. Over to greater minds than mine…..

Jobs in university administration

papers — This man had hair before he started shortlisting.....

The Guardian Higher Education network recently hosted a careers clinic on ‘How to break into university administration‘, and I posted a few thoughts that I thought might be useful. According to my referral stats for my blog, a number of visitors end up here with similar questions about both recruitment processes and what it’s like to work for a university. I think it’s mainly my post on Academics vs University Administrators part 94 that gets those hits. I’ve also been asked by friends and relatives for my very limited wisdom on this topic.

I also think it’s good to share this information, because one of my worries whenever I’m involved in recruiting staff is that we end up employing people who are best at writing applications and being interviewed. In my particular line of work, that’s fine – if you can’t write a strong job application against set criteria, you probably shouldn’t be helping academics with grant applications. But that’s the exception.

So what follows is me spilling the beans on my very limited experience of recruiting administrative staff in two institutions, both as panel chair and as an external panel member. I’m not an HR expert. I’m not a careers advisor. But for what it’s worth, what follows is an edited and expanded version of what I posted on the Guardian page.

——————————————————————————

When an administrative job is advertised, a document called a ‘person specification’ is drawn up. Formats vary, but usually this is a list of skills, attributes, experiences, and attitudes that are either classed as “essential” or “desirable”. Often it’ll say which part of the recruitment process these will be examined (application, aptitude test, or interview).

In all of the recruitment I’ve been involved in, this is an absolutely vital document. Decisions about who to short list for interview and who not to and ultimately who to appoint will be made on the basis of this person specification and justified on that basis. And we must be able to justify our decisions if challenged. As panel chair I was required to (briefly) explain reasons for rejection for everyone we didn’t interview, and then everyone we didn’t appoint. I’m sure the importance of the person specification isn’t unique to universities.

To get an interview, an applicant needs to show that they meet all of the essential criteria and as many of the desirable ones as possible. My advice to applicants is that if they don’t have some of the desirable criteria, they should make the case for having something equivalent, or a plan to get that skill. For example, if a person spec lists “web design” as desirable and you can’t do it, express willingness to go on a course. For bonus points, find a course that you’d like to go on. If you’re offered an interview, you can use the person spec to predict the interview questions – they’ll be questions aimed at getting evidence about your fit with the person spec. You could do worse than to imagine that you’re on the interview panel and think of the questions you’d ask to get evidence about candidates’ fit with those criteria. Chances are you won’t be a million miles off.

Unfortunately, if you don’t meet the essential criteria, it’s a waste of time applying. You won’t get an interview.

As an applicant, your job in your application form is to make it as obvious as possible to the panel members that you meet the criteria. Back it up with evidence and at least some detail. If a criterion concerns supporting committees with minute taking and agenda prep, don’t just assert you’ve done it – say a bit about the committee, and what you did exactly, and how you did it. Culturally, we’re not good at blowing our own trumpets, and a good and effective way round this is to just stick to the facts. Don’t tell, show.

Panel members really appreciate it when applicants make it easy – they can just look down the person spec, look through the application, and tick, tick, tick, you’re on the potential interviewees pile. Don’t make panel members guess or try to interpret what you say to measure it against the criteria. There’s nothing more frustrating than an applicant who might be exactly what we need, but who hasn’t made a strong enough or clear enough case, especially about transferable skills.

Panel members can tell the difference between an application that’s being tweaked slightly and sent to every job vacancy, and one that’s been tailored for that particular vacancy. Do that, put in the effort, and you will stand out, because so many people don’t. Take the application seriously, and you’ll be taken seriously in turn. And spell check and proof read is your friend. A good admin vacancy in a university in the current climate attract hundreds of applications. That’s not an exaggeration.

Two other tips. One is always ask for feedback if you’re unsuccessful at interview. In every process I’ve been involved in, there’s useful feedback there for you if you want it. Even if it’s “someone else was better suited, and there’s nothing you could have done differently/better”, you still want to know that. If you were good, chances are that the university in question would like you to apply again in the future. The second is to always take up any offer of an informal conversation in advance of applying. If you can ask sensible questions that show you’ve read all the documents thoroughly, there’s a chance that you’ll be remembered when you apply. You won’t get special treatment, but it can’t hurt.

Jobs will be advertised in a variety of places, depending on the grade and the degree of specialism needed. Universities will have a list of current vacancies on their websites, and often use local papers for non-specialist roles. Jobs.ac.uk is also widely used, and has customisable searches/vacancy emails, as well as some more good advice on job seeking.

Finally….. every job interview process that I’ve been involved with has attracted outstanding candidates. Some with little work experience, some with NHS or local authority admin experience, many from the private sector too. Universities are generally good employers and good places to work. It’s competitive at the best of times, and will be doubly so now.

————————————————————————–

The fact that most of you reading this not only (a) already have university jobs; and (b) know perfectly well how the recruitment process works isn’t lost on me. But this one’s for my random google visitors. Normal service will be resuming shortly.

Responding to Referees

This post is co-authored by Adam Golberg of Cash for Questions (UK), and Jonathan O’Donnell and Tseen Khoo of The Research Whisperer (Australia).

It arises out of a comment that Jonathan made about understanding and responding to referees on one of Adam’s posts about what to do if your grant application is unsuccessful. This seemed like a good topic for an article of its own, so here it is, cross-posted to our respective blogs.

A quick opening note on terminology: We use ‘referee’ or ‘assessor’ to refer to academics who read and review research grant applications, then feed their comments into the final decision-making process. Terminology varies a bit between funders, and between the UK and Australia. We’re not talking about journal referees, although some of the advice that follows may also apply there.

————————————-

There are funding schemes that offer applicants the opportunity to respond to referees’ comments. These responses are then considered alongside the assessors’ scores/comments by the funding panel. Some funders (including the Economic and Social Research Council [ESRC] in the UK) have a filtering process before this point, so if you are being asked to respond to referees’ comments, you should consider it a positive sign as not all applications get this far. Others, such as the Australian Research Council (ARC), offer you the chance to write a rejoinder regardless of the level of referees’ reports.

If the funding body offers you the option of a response, you should consider your response as one of the most important parts of the application process. A good response can draw the sting from criticisms, emphasise the positive comments, and enhance your chances of getting funding. A bad one can doom your application.

And if you submit no response at all? That can signal negative things about your project and research team that might live on beyond this grant round.

The first thing you might need to do when you get the referees’ comments about your grant application is kick the (imaginary) cat.* This is an important process. Embrace it.

When that’s out of your system, here are four strategies for putting together a persuasive response and pulling that slaved-over application across the funding finish line.

1. Attitude and tone

Be nice. Start with a brief statement thanking the anonymous referees for their careful and insightful comments, even if actually you suspect some of them are idiots who haven’t read your masterpiece properly. Think carefully about the tone of the rest of the response as well. You’re aiming for calm, measured, and appropriately assertive. There’s nothing wrong with saying that a referee is just plain wrong on a particular point, but do it calmly and politely. If you’re unhappy about a criticism or reviewer, there’s a good chance that it will take several drafts before you eliminate all the spikiness from the text. If it makes you feel better (and it might), you can write what you really think in the tone that you think it in but, whatever you do, don’t send that version! This is the version that may spontaneously combust from the deadly mixture of vitriol and pleading contained within.

Preparing a response is not about comprehensively refuting every criticism, or establishing intellectual superiority over the referees. You need to sift the comments to identify the ones that really matter. What are the criticisms (or backhanded compliments) that will harm your cause? Highlight those and answer them methodically (see below). Petty argy-bargy isn’t worth spending your time on.

2. Understanding and interpreting referees’ comments

One UK funder provides referee report templates that invite the referees to state their level of familiarity with the topic and even a little about their research background, so that the final decision-making panel can put their comments into context. This is a great idea, and we would encourage other funding agencies to embrace it.

Beyond this volunteered information (if provided), never assume you know who the referee is, or that you can infer anything else about them because you could be going way off-base with your rant against econometricians who don’t ‘get’ sociological work. If there’s one thing worse than an ad hominem response, it’s an ad hominem response aimed at the wrong target!

One exercise that you might find useful is to produce a matrix listing all of the criticisms, and indicating the referee(s) who made those objections. As these reports are produced independently, the more referees make a particular point, the more problematic it might be. This tabled information can be sorted by section (e.g. methodology, impact/dissemination plan, alternative approaches). You can then repeat the exercise with the positive comments that were made. While assimilating and processing information is a task that academics tend to be good at, it’s worth being systematic about this because it’s easy to overlook praise or attach too much weight to objections that are the most irritating.

Also, look out for, and highlight, any requests that you do a different project. Sometimes, these can be as obvious as “you should be doing Y instead”, where Y is a rather different project and probably closer to the reviewer’s own interests. These can be quite difficult criticisms to deal with, as what they are proposing may be sensible enough, but not what you want to do. In such cases, stick to your guns, be clear what you want to do, and why it’s of at least as much value as the alternative proposal.

Using the matrix that you have prepared, consider further how damaging each criticism might be in the minds of the decision makers. Using a combination of weight of opinion (positive remarks on a particular point minus criticisms) and multiplying by potential damage, you should now have a sense of which are the most serious criticisms.

Preparing a response is not a task to be attempted in isolation. You should involve other members of your team, and make full use of your research support office and senior colleagues (who are not directly involved in the application). Take advantage of assistance in interpreting the referees’ comments, and reviewing multiple drafts of your response.

Don’t read the assessor reports by themselves; you should also go back to your whole application, several times if necessary. It has probably been some time since you submitted the application, and new eyes and a bit of distance will help you to see the application as the referees may have seen it. You could pinpoint the reasons for particular criticisms, or misunderstandings that you assumed they made. While their criticisms may not be valid for the application you thought you wrote, they may very well be so for the one that you actually submitted.

3. The response

You should plan to use the available space in line with the exercise above, setting aside space for each criticism in proportion to its risk of stopping you getting funded.

Quibbles about your budgeted expenditure for hotel accommodation are insignificant compared to objections that question your entire approach, devalue your track-record, invalidate your methodology, or claim that you’re adding little that’s new to the sum of human knowledge. So, your response should:

Make it easy for the decision-makers: Be clear and concise.
Be specific when rebutting from the application. For example: “As we stated on page 24, paragraph 3…”. However, don’t lose sight of the need to create a document that can be understood in isolation as far as possible.
If possible and appropriate, introduce something that you’ve done in the time since submission to rebut a negative comment (be careful, though, as some schemes may not allow the introduction of new material).
Acknowledge any misunderstandings that arise from the application’s explanatory shortcomings or limitations of space, and be open to new clarifications.
Be grateful for the positive comments, but focus on rebutting the negative comments.

4. Be the reviewer

For the best way to really get an idea of what the response dynamic is all about in these funding rounds, consider becoming a grant referee. Once you’ve assessed a few applications and cut your teeth on a whole funding round (they can often be year-long processes), you quickly learn about the demands of the job and how regular referees ‘value’ applications.

Look out for chances to be on grant assessment panels, and say yes to invitations to review for various professional bodies or government agencies. Almost all funding schemes could do with a larger and more diverse pool of academics to act as their ‘gate-keepers’.

Finally: Remember to keep your eyes on the prize. The purpose of this response exercise is to give your project the best possible chance of getting funding. It is an inherent part of many funding rounds these days, and not only an afterthought to your application.

* The writers and their respective organisations do not, in any way, endorse the mistreatment of animals. We love cats. We don’t kick them, and neither should you. It’s just an expression. For those who’ve never met it, it means ‘to vent your frustration and powerlessness’.

I’ve disabled comments on this entry so that we can keep conversations on this article to one place – please head over to the Research Whisperer if you’d like to comment. (AG).

New year’s wishes….

The new calendar year is traditionally a time for reflection and for resolutions, but in a fit of hubris I’ve put together a list of resolutions I’d like to see for the sector, research funders, and university culture in general. In short, for everyone but me. But to show willing, I’ll join in too.

No more of the following, please….

1. “Impactful”

Just…. no. I don’t think of myself a linguistic purist or a grammar-fascist, though I am a pedant for professional purposes. I recognise that language changes and evolves over time, and I welcome changes that bring new colour and new descriptive power to our language. While I accept that the ‘impact agenda’ is here to stay for the foreseeable future, the ‘impactful’ agenda need not be. The technical case against this monstrosity of a word is outlined at Grammarist, but surely the aesthetic case is conclusive in itself. I warn anyone using this word in my presence that I reserve the right to tell them precisely how annoyful they’re being.

2. The ‘Einstein fallacy’

This is a mistaken and misguided delusion that a small but significant proportion of academics appear to be suffering from. It runs a bit like this:
1) Einstein was a genius
2) Einstein was famously absent-minded and shambolic in his personal organisation
3) Conclusion: If I am or pretend to be absent-minded and shambolic , either:
(3a) I will be a genius; or
(3b) People will think I am a genius; or
(3c) Both.

I accept that some academics are genuinely bad at administration and organisation. In some cases it’s a lack of practice/experience, in others a lack of confidence, and I accept that this is just not where their interests and talent lies. Fair enough. But please stop being deliberately bad at it to try to impress people. Oh, you can only act like a prima donna if you have the singing skills to back it up…

3) Lack of predictability in funding calls

Yes, I’m looking at you, ESRC. Before the comprehensive spending review and all of the changes that followed from that, we had a fairly predictable annual cycle of calls, very few of which had very early autumn deadlines. Now we’re into a new cycle which may or may not be predictable, and a lot of them seem to be very early in the academic year. Sure, let’s have one off calls on particular topics, but let’s have a predictable annual cycle for everything else with as much advance notice as possible. It’ll help hugely with ‘demand management’ because it’ll be much easier to postpone applications that aren’t ready if we know there will be another call. For example, I was aware of a couple of very strong seminar series ideas which needed further work and discussion within the relevant research and research-user communities. My advice was to start that work now using the existence of the current call as impetuous, and to submit next year. But we’ve taken a gamble, as we don’t know if there will be another call in the future, and you can’t tell me because apparently a decision has yet to be made.

4) Lazy “please forward as appropriate” emails

Stuff sent to me from outside the Business School with the expectation that I’ll just send it on to everyone. No. Email overload is a real problem, and I write most of my emails with the expectation that I have ten seconds at most either to get the message across, or to earn an attention extension. I mean, you’re not even reading this properly are you? You’re probably skim reading this in case there’s a nugget of wit amongst the whinging. Every email I sent creates work for others, and every duff, dodgy, or irrelevant email I send reduces my e-credit rating. I know for a fact that at least some former colleagues deleted everything I sent without reading it – there’s no other explanation I can think of for missing two emails with the header including the magic words “sabbatical leave”.

So… will I be spending my e-credit telling my colleagues about your non-business school related event which will be of interested to no-one? No, no, and most assuredly no. I will forward it “as appropriate”, if by “appropriate” you mean my deleted items folder.

Sometimes, though, a handful of people might be interested. Or quite a lot of people might be interested, but it’s not worth an individual email. Maybe I’ll put it on the portal, or include it in one of my occasional news and updates emails. Maybe.

If you’d like me to do that, though, how about sending me the message in a form I can forward easily and without embarrassment? With a meaningful subject line, a succinct and accurate summary in the opening two sentences? So that I don’t have to do it for you before I feel I can send it on. There’s a lovely internet abbreviation – TL:DR – which stands for Too Long: Didn’t Read. I think its existence tells us something.

5) People who are lucky enough to have interesting, rewarding and enjoyable jobs with an excellent employer and talented and supportive colleagues, who always manage to find some petty irritants to complain about, rather than counting their blessings.

Dear rail companies….

"Good morning, look you, Jones-the-absolute-ripoff"

Dear rail companies,

Just a quick note of appreciation for your wildly unpredictable and logic-defying pricing structure. I enjoy trying to navigate the labyrinthine maze of different fares whenever I want to travel. I highly recommend the Semi-Super Saver Single Return Railroader Autumn Summer Traveller Student Nurse District Pet Family Oxbow Lake Pass incidentally.

It’s irritating enough doing this for myself, but it’s even more annoying when trying to cost a research project involving a lot of train trips. The project could be fairly cheap, or it could be massively expensive, depending upon brute luck, how organised academic colleagues are in requesting tickets, how soon the administrators can book them through the special magical portal of trail travel that universities seem to have, what time academics have to leave/arrive, and whether Mars is in the ascendant. Do we go optimistic, take an intermediate position, or take a wildly pessimistic one? Travel costs could end up being negligible in relation to the project as a whole, or run to a significant share of expenses. We could end up returning a fairly substantial slice of cash, or we could run out of money and/or cut the project activities short.

Guess what, rail companies? The rest of the budget is predictable. So why are you making life difficult? You don’t get research associates charging extra for work before 9:30, or offering to work for substantially less if you tell them what to do six weeks in advance. Transcription costs aren’t more expensive if the tapes leave London via Waterloo rather than St Pancreas International. Overheads aren’t more expensive in peak hours.

All this is bad enough. And then one train company – I’m looking at you, East Midlands Trains – makes it worse by plastering adverts featuring Jedward all over every phone box in the Greater Nottingham area. Damn you all. Damn you all to hell. On an apex network first advance single.