Career Young Researchers | Cash for Questions: Research funding, policy and development

Reviewing Internal Peer Review of Grant Applications, Part 2: How to make it work better

A version of this article first appeared in Funding Insight in April 2019 and is reproduced with kind permission of Research Professional. For more articles like this, visit www.researchprofessional.com

We can leap higher with assistance than we can on our own. Picture: Darren England (AAP) via ABC News.

Most universities have internal peer review processes for grant applications. In part one I discussed the different purposes of internal peer review and how they can cause confusion. I also wrote about how to ensure that we present internal peer review as helpful and supportive rather than a hurdle to be overcome. In this second and final part, I’m going to look at how we might do internal peer review of grant applications better.

Reviewing Internal Review of Grant Applications (part 1): Helping or Hoop-jumping?

“The review panel is concerned that your methodology is under-specified”
(WF Yeames, ‘When did you last see your father?‘)

Most universities have internal peer review processes for research grant applications. In the first of two articles about internal peer review, I wonder whether what ought to be valuable support can be perceived as an obstacle. Part two looks at how we might run peer review more effectively.

This year, we should avoid returning to normal

A version of this article first appeared in Funding Insight in February 2021 and is reproduced with kind permission of Research Professional. For more articles like this, visit www.researchprofessional.com

Hello and welcome to a reflective piece written by someone in a position of relative privilege in academia during a time of collapse and crisis. Written by someone who knows no more than you do about how best to cope with or understand it, and quite possibly substantially less.

So why am I writing? Out of an attempt to take stock of where we’re at as honestly as I can, without succumbing to the twin temptations of false hope of some brighter new dawn or the consolations of cynicism.

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After a little reflection, this is what I want to tell you…

Kindness is everything

I don’t know who you are but listen, you’re doing really well. You probably know the saying by now: “you’re not working from home, you’re working at home in a pandemic”. And it’s true—you’re being tested in all kinds of ways, I’m sure. It’s so easy to focus on what we feel we’re not doing well that we completely take for granted the things we are doing well. This is the basis of imposter syndrome where we think of our own talents and achievements as mundane but regard those of others as vastly superior. See also: the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

We’ve got to be kinder to ourselves, as well as to others. I’ve been carrying a bit of residual guilt around because it feels like very little of the burden of the current crisis has fallen upon my shoulders. I have been able to continue working in physical safety and—in spite of some spicy days and weeks—with a manageable workload that doesn’t pose a serious risk to my mental wellbeing. As I don’t have children, I’ve not had pressures of home schooling.

It’s good to be aware that others have it tougher, to be willing to help, to show kindness and concern and empathy and consideration. To have a sense of proportion. But it’s a mistake to minimise or even discount the things that we’re finding difficult. The things we’re missing.

The fact that other people are in much, much more pain than I am doesn’t mean it hurts any less when I stub my toe. And I won’t make my toe feel any better by berating myself for being in pain and for not wanting to be in pain.

It’s easy to focus on those from whom extraordinary efforts are required during these extraordinary times, to compare ourselves to that extraordinary standard, and judge ourselves harshly. But if you’re anything like me, by this stage you’ve probably normalised a lot of the restrictions that all of us are asked to live under. Not seeing family and friends, severely curtailed leisure activities, having to adapt to remote working and so on. It’s all so [makes screaming sound] and this is the new normal.

But we should not forget that we’re all contributing. If you’re following whatever the guidelines are today, you’re contributing. I have always been ill-suited for a healthcare career due to my squeamishness and clumsiness, so perhaps I should not compare my contribution to theirs. A lot is being asked of each and every one of us even if you feel – as I do – your burden is lighter. From each according to their ability, and so on.

Won’t get fooled again

Kindness—for others, for ourselves—should be the order of the day but what is stopping it becoming the order of the everyday?

There’s a temptation to think that things must be different, will have to be better after this crisis. We should be aware that powerful forces will want to put things back more or less where they were before it ever happened (see the last financial crisis) or in even crueler positions (ibid). I’ve listened to a few podcasts discussing the post-1945 political settlement in the UK and the birth of the welfare state, and it’s clear is that none of that happened by accident or overnight. A lot of work went into preparing the ground and preparing the arguments and policy solutions.

If we want to “build back better” (sorry) in academia, we need to think creatively, we need to share ideas, we need to prepare the ground for radical ideas. We need to shift the Overton Window.

Equal treatment

For one thing, we can’t do better in academia without confronting our structural inequalities. And I am sorry. Yes, this is another white, middle-age, middle-class, heterosexual, cisgender man telling everyone what he thinks about equality issues. I understand the scepticism. But in my defence there’s only one thing worse than all that: someone who is all those things and yet doesn’t think about equality issues.

Over the summer I listened to a Hidden Brain podcast on ‘Playing Favourites’ which includes a story about a Yale academic who received markedly better treatment for a hand injury once the doctors discovered that she worked at Yale. And a story about an academic who agreed to an interview she would usually decline just because the journalist had been at the same university at the same time. Both the doctor and the academic could come away from their respective interactions feeling a warm glow as they’d both done something nice for someone else that they didn’t have to.

But as the academic in that second story—Mahzarin Banaji—said: “I think that kind of act of helping towards people with whom we have some shared group identity is really the modern way in which discrimination likely happens.”

Which leaves me to ask: who gets my standard service, and who gets my above-and-beyond, my extra mile? Who gets one last extra read of their proposal? Who gets a meeting rather than an email? Who gets a longer meeting? Whose request gets the quickest response? This year my challenge to myself is (a) to keep an eye on who find I want to do favours for; and (b) look to do more favours for members of disadvantaged/unrepresented groups who may not have had their share of favours in the past. I invite you to join me. My preliminary conclusion is that I tend to privilege the pushy because I’m a people pleaser. I should do better.

My one piece of advice

I’ve only got one bit of proper, real advice for researchers and research professionals and it has got nothing to do with research or academia and it is, I am sorry, only relevant to those privileged enough not to be shielding. Go for a walk outside. Or a run, or a cycle. If you can, you should. You won’t regret it. I seldom regret going for a run, and I never regret going for a walk. Around the park, around the block, whatever. Listen to nature or the streetscape, or put in your headphones, listen to your happy tunes at top volume or your favourite podcast, and stride purposefully like you’re five minutes late for a meeting on the other side of campus.

You may or may not feel better afterwards. But at least you’ll have been for a walk.

Region’s Greetings from one of my recent walks. Trent Embankment, Nottingham.
Picture credit: me. Graffiti credit: Probably not Banksy… Trent Banksy, maybe…

An applicant’s guide to Full Economic Costing

A version of this article first appeared in Funding Insight in July 2019 and is reproduced with kind permission of Research Professional. For more articles like this, visit www.researchprofessional.com

Image courtesy of Max Pixel CC0 Public Domain License

You’re applying for UK research council funding and suddenly you’re confronted with massive overhead costs. Adam Golberg tries to explain what you need to know.

Trying to explain Full Economic Costing is not straightforward. For current purposes, I’ll be assuming that you’re an academic applying for UK Research Council funding; that you want to know enough to understand your budget; and that you don’t really want to know much more than that.

If you do already know a lot about costing or research finances, be warned – this article contains simplifications, generalisations, and omissions, and you may not like it.

What are Full Economic Costs, and why are they taking up so much of my budget?

Full Economic Costs (fEC) are paid as part of UK Research and Innovation grants to cover a fair share of the wider costs of running the university – the infrastructure that supports your research. There are a few different cost categories, but you don’t need to worry about the distinctions.

Every UK university calculates its own overhead rates using a common methodology. I’m not going to try to explain how this works, because (a) I don’t know; and (b) you don’t need to know. Most other research funders (charities, EU funders, industry) do not pay fEC for most of their schemes. However, qualifying peer-reviewed charity funding does attract a hidden overhead of around 19% through QR funding (the same source as REF funding). But it’s so well hidden that a lot of people don’t know about it. And that’s not important right now.

How does fEC work?

In effect, this methodology produces a flat daily overhead rate to be charged relative to academic time on your project. This rate is the same for the time of the most senior professor and the earliest of early career researchers.

One effect of this is to make postdoc researchers seem proportionally more expensive. Senior academics are more expensive because of higher employment costs (salary etc), but the overheads generated by both will be the same. Don’t be surprised if the overheads generated by a full time researcher are greater than her employment costs.

All fEC costs are calculated at today’s rates. Inflation and increments will be added later to the final award value.

Do we have to charge fEC overheads?

Yes. This is a methodology that all universities use to make sure that research is funded properly, and there are good arguments for not undercutting each other. Rest assured that everyone – including your competitors– are playing by the same rules and end up with broadly comparable rates. Reviewers are not going to be shocked by your overhead costs compared to rival bids. Your university is not shooting itself (or you) in the foot.

There are fairness reasons not to waive overheads. The point of Research Councils is to fund the best individual research proposals regardless of the university they come from, while the REF (through QR) funds for broad, sustained research excellence based on historical performance. If we start waiving overheads, wealthier universities will have an unfair advantage as they can waive while others drown.

Further, the budget allocations set by funders are decided with fEC overheads in mind. They’re expecting overhead costs. If your project is too expensive for the call, the problem is with your proposal, not with overheads. Either it contains activities that shouldn’t be there, or there’s a problem with the scope and scale of what you propose.

However, there are (major) funding calls where “evidence of institutional commitment” is expected. This could include a waiver of some overheads, but more likely it will be contributions in kind – some free academic staff time, a PhD studentship, new facilities, a separate funding stream for related work. Different universities have different policies on co-funding and it probably won’t hurt to ask. But ask early (because approval is likely to be complex) and have an idea of what you want.

What’s this 80% business?

This is where things get unnecessarily complicated. Costs are calculated at 100% fEC but paid by the research councils at 80%. This leaves the remaining 20% of costs to be covered by the university. Fortunately, there’s enough money from overheads to cover the missing 20% of direct costs. However, if you have a lot of non-pay costs and relatively little academic staff time, check with your costings team that the project is still affordable.

Why 80%? In around 2005 it was deemed ‘affordable’ – a compromise figure intended to make a significant contribution to university costs but without breaking the bank. Again, you don’t need to worry about any of this.

Can I game the fEC system, and if so, how?

Academic time is what drives overheads, so reducing academic time reduces overheads. One way to do this is to think about whether you really need as much researcher time on the project. If you really need to save money, could contracts finish earlier or start later in the project?

Note that non-academic time (project administrators, managers, technicians) does not attract overheads, and so are good value for money under this system. If some of the tasks you’d like your research associate to do are project management/administration tasks, your budget will go further if you cost in administrative time instead.

However, if your final application has unrealistically low amounts of academic time and/or costs in administrators to do researcher roles, the panel will conclude that either (a) you don’t understand the resource implications of your own proposal; or (b) a lack of resources means the project risks being unable to achieve its stated aims. Either way, it won’t be funded. Funding panels are especially alert for ‘salami projects’ which include lots of individual co-investigators for thin slivers of time in which the programme of research cannot possibly be completed. Or for undercooked projects which put too much of a burden on not enough postdoc researcher time. As mentioned earlier, if the project is too big for the call budget, the problem is with your project.

The best way to game fEC it is not to worry about it. If you have support with your research costings, you’ll be working with someone who can cost your application and advise you on where and how it can be tweaked and what costs are eligible. That’s their job – leave it to them, trust what they tell you, and use the time saved to write the rest of the application.

Thanks to Nathaniel Golden (Nottingham Trent) and Jonathan Hollands (University of Nottingham) for invaluable comments on earlier versions of this article. Any errors that remain are my own.

Summary-time, and the writing ain’t easy…

A version of this article first appeared in Funding Insight in March 2019 and is reproduced with kind permission of Research Professional. For more articles like this, visit www.researchprofessional.com

All funding schemes have a summary section as an essential part of the application form. On the UK research councils’ JeS form, the instruction is to “[d]escribe the proposed research in simple terms in a way that could be publicised to a general audience”.

But the summary is not just about publicising your research. The summary also:

primes your reader’s expectations and understanding of your project
helps the funder to identify suitable experts to review your application
gives the reviewer a clear, straightforward, and complete overview of your project
helps your nominated funding panel introducer to summarise your application for the rest of the decision-making panel
acts as a prompt for the other panel members to recall your application, which they may have only skim-read
can be used once your project is successful, for a variety of purposes including ethics review; participant recruitment; impact work.
will appeal to non-academic panel members, especially for Leverhulme Trust applications.

How to make a mess of a summary

There are three main ways to make a mess of your summary.

1. Concentrating on the context – writing an introduction, not a summary.

I’ve written before about using too much background or introductory material (what I describe as ‘the Star Wars error’) but it’s a particular problem for a summary. The reader needs some context and background, but if it’s more than a sentence or two, it’s probably too much. If you don’t reach the “this research will” tipping point by a third of the way through (or worse, even later), there’s too much background.

2. Writing to avoid spoilers – writing a blurb not a precis

I really admire film editors who produce movie trailers: they capture the essence of the film while minimising spoilers. However while a film trailer for The Sixth Sense, The Usual Suspects, or The Crying Game should omit certain key elements, a project summary needs to include all of them. An unexpected fifth-act twist is great for film fans, but not for reviewers. Their reaction to your dramatic twist of adding a hitherto unheralded extra research question or work package is more likely to earn you bafflement and a poor review than an Oscar.

3. Ignoring Plain English

The National Institute for Health Research’s Research for Patient Benefit form asks for a “Plain English summary of research”. As a former regional panel member, I have read many applications and some great examples of Plain English summaries of very complex projects. I have read applications from teams that have not tried at all, and from those whose commitment to Plain English lasts the first three paragraphs, before they lapse back.

Writing in Plain English is hard. It involves finding a way to forget how you usually communicate to colleagues, and putting yourself in the situation of someone who knows a fraction of what you do. Without dumbing down or patronising. If it wasn’t hard to write in Plain English, we wouldn’t need the expert shorthand of specialist language, which is usually created to simplify complicated concepts to facilitate clear and concise communication among colleagues.

Very few people can write their own Plain English summary. It’s something you probably need help with, and your friendly neighbourhood research development officer might be well placed to do this – and might even draft it for you.

Incidentally, with NIHR schemes, beware not only of using specialist language, but also using higher-reading-level vocabulary and expressions when more simple ones will do. There’s no need for a superabundance of polysyllabic terminonlogy. The Levehulme Trust offers some useful guidance on writing for the lay ‘lay reader’.

When to write it

Should you write the summary when you start the application, or when you’ve finished it? Ideally both.

You should sketch out your summary when you start writing – if you can’t produce a bullet point summary of your project you’re probably not ready to write it up as an application. Save plenty of time at the very end to rework it in the light of your completed project. Above all, get as much outside input on your summary as you can. It is the most important part of the application, and well worth your time and trouble.