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.
Three elements
A typical research funding call will have three core elements: a strategic overview of the call, with aims and objectives; a practical guide to applying; and the application form (or online portal) itself.
The overview will outline the aims of the call, what the funder hopes to achieve and why, and explain what is in and what is out of scope. These documents have varying degrees of clarity and precision. Sometimes it’ll be very clear – we want x, y, or z and nothing else. Sometimes it’ll be more open and will feature a core area and then some “including but not limited to” examples. Some calls are more confusing and have a matrix of cross-cutting themes and topics. If they read like they’re designed-by-commiteee, they probably are.
The application guide will tell you how to actually go about applying. It should include all the practicalities and may go into further detail about what’s expected in each section of the application form. It will explain costing rules, the call timeline, and how to log into their online system. Sometimes there’s an online FAQ document too, and if there is, bookmark it and return to it as some funders will update it as they’re AQWIF (asked questions with increasing frequency).
These days, most application forms are either online submission systems, downloadable/uploadable templates, or a set of guidance notes to configure your own Word document. The application form may be standard for the funder or bespoke for the scheme, or a tweaked version of a standard form.
For almost all calls, you should be able to locate text with these three distinct purposes even if they’re configured differently. If you can’t, you’re probably missing a document. Some schemes combine the overview and the application guide, while others put the lot on their web page in one sprawling page.
Read closely
My primary piece of advice is to actually read the documents. All of them. Even the dull bits. Slowly. Read them out loud, or out loud in your head. It’s so easy for researchers to skim through, only looking for the bits that interest them, and perhaps misunderstanding the call. It’s crucial to understand what the funders are trying to achieve with the call. Its existence is not an accident. One or more organisations is trying to achieve some very specific aims.
If you don’t understand what those aims are, you can’t help spend their money to achieve them. The more complex the remit, the more important it is that you locate your proposal clearly within it. Remember, for complex calls, the reviewers may be confused too. Quote their framing language back at them.
The application guide will contain important insights into what exactly reviewers will be looking for in individual sections of the form. Sometimes questions on the form will just contain a short title while leaving the detailed explanation to the guide where it can easily be missed. This is poor practice on the part of the funder, but it happens all the time.
Study the form
If you’re seriously considering a bid, you should engage with the application form or online submission system as early as possible. You need to get a sense of what information is needed and how much of it in order to plan your workload, and to enlist the support of colleagues where needed on specialist sections. This could be intellectual property; public engagement; data management, and so on.
Some funders will provide a PDF printout as a sample form. That’s helpful, but it’s no substitute for exploring the submission portal itself. Sometimes questions which appear to be binary ‘yes/no’ responses on a printout will turn out to have hidden supplementary questions or ask for further details.
The balance and focus of the application form may tell you a lot about the priorities of the call. If you’re asked about it, it matters. If you’re looking at applying for a networking grant and ask for a lot of detail about legacy and much less about the specifics of your topic, that’ll tell you what’s important to them. If they ask a lot about impact, you should have a lot to say about it. Sometimes an application form will tell you almost as much as an overview about what the call’s aims really are.
This is also crucial: when you forward your draft for internal review, make sure it’s on the official form. You’ll get much more useful feedback on an application that’s presented in its natural habitat.
You should enlist the support of your friendly neighbourhood research development professional as soon as possible to help you interpret the call. He or she will likely have seen many similar calls before and will be able to help you frame the project you’d ideally like to do to suit the projects the funder would ideally like to support. Or find you a more appropriate call to consider instead.
Nuts and bolts
There are key elements of information you need to locate in any funding call. When is the deadline? Is this a single stage application, or is there an outline stage? If an indicative timetable is provided for the full call, make a note in your diary of the later stages of the process too, especially if there’s a full application stage. You don’t want to be surprised by an invitation to submit a full application after the success of an outline that you’d forgotten all about and hadn’t factored into your workload planning.
How much funding is available? How long can projects last for? What are the costing rules? All of this will constrain the size of your project. You need to find out how far the budget will go as early as possible – there’s no point designing a project that’s not unaffordable.
Minesweeping
I’ve mentioned ‘minesweeping’ in a previous piece about last minute applications, and it’s a key part of reading the funding call. Minesweeping is the detailed study of the call documentation (including the submission portal) for anything that might explode and sink your bid if it’s not dealt with early.
You need to read all the call documents because you need to be aware of any particular or unusual requirements of the call. If it’s an international collaboration scheme, it might have rules about numbers of partners from named countries or categories of country. If an industrial collaboration, it might require SME participation or perhaps industrial leadership. If there’s an emphasis on career development, perhaps the funder wants to see an early career researcher as co-investigator. Perhaps there are very particular requirements for the principal investigator. Unusual call requirements are not at all unusual, and generally make perfect sense in the context of the call aims. You need to be aware of them early, as they may require you to identify new partners.
I know it’s easy to get swept away with the excitement and possibilities of a new research funding call that looks like a great fit with your research ambitions. But it’s important to take a breath and to invest that extra bit of time right at the start of your process to make sure you’ve got the best possible understanding of the call, its motivations, and the application process. Only then can you ensure that your bid will give the panel the feeling of ‘good fit’ that leads to a project then being green-lit.