{"id":574,"date":"2012-10-25T22:19:26","date_gmt":"2012-10-25T21:19:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/socialscienceresearchfunding.co.uk\/?p=574"},"modified":"2014-02-20T16:49:18","modified_gmt":"2014-02-20T16:49:18","slug":"esrc-success-rates-by-discipline-what-on-earth-is-going-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/socialscienceresearchfunding.co.uk\/?p=574","title":{"rendered":"ESRC success rates by discipline: what on earth is going on?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Update – read this post<\/a> for the 2012\/13 stats for success rates by discipline<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The ESRC have recently published a set of ‘vital statistics<\/a>‘ which are “a detailed breakdown of research funding for the 2011\/12 financial year” (see page 22).\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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).\u00a0 However, Business and Management researchers submitted 68 applications, of which 1 was funded.\u00a0 One.\u00a0 One single funded application.\u00a0 In the whole year.\u00a0 For the whole discipline.\u00a0 Education fared little better with 2 successes out of 62.<\/p>\n

Just pause for a moment to let that sink in.\u00a0 Business and Management.\u00a0 1 of 68.\u00a0 Education.\u00a0 2 of 62.<\/p>\n

Others did worse still.\u00a0 Nothing for Demographics (4 applications), Environmental Planning (8), Science and Technology Studies (4), Social Stats, Computing, Methods (11), and Social Work (10).\u00a0 However, with a 14% success rate working out at about 1 in 7, low volumes of applications may explain this.\u00a0 It’s rather harder to explain a total of 3 applications funded from 130.<\/p>\n

Next least successful were ‘no lead discipline’ (4 of 43) and Human Geography (3 from 32).\u00a0 No other subjects had success rates in single figures.\u00a0 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%.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Is this year unusual, or is there a worrying and peculiar trend developing?\u00a0 Well, you can judge for yourself from this table on page 49 of last year’s annual report<\/a>, which has success rates going back to the heady days of 06\/07.\u00a0 Three caveats, though, before you go haring off to see your own discipline’s stats.\u00a0 One is that the reports refer to financial years, not academic years, which may (but probably doesn’t) make a difference.\u00a0 The second is that the figures refer to Small and Standard Grants only (not Future Leaders\/First Grants, Seminar Series, or specific targeted calls).\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 Last year’s Education success rate?\u00a0 5%.\u00a0 The years before?\u00a0 8% and 14%\u00a0 Business and Management?\u00a0 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<\/em> projects were funded in Demography, Environmental Planning, or Social Work.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

So what’s going on here?\u00a0 Well, there are a number of possibilities.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Certainly I’ve heard it said that B&M research tends to suffer from poor research methodologies.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

But are any or all of these possibilities sufficient to explain the difference in funding rates?\u00a0 I really don’t think so.\u00a0 So what’s going on?\u00a0 Unconscious bias?\u00a0 Snobbery?\u00a0 Institutional bias?\u00a0 Politics?\u00a0 Hidden agendas?\u00a0 All of the above?\u00a0 Anyone know?<\/p>\n

More pertinently, what do we do about it?\u00a0 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.\u00a0 While no-one would expect to see equal success rates for every subject, this year’s figures – in my view – are very troubling.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 Over to greater minds than mine…..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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).\u00a0 While differences in success rates between academic disciplines are nothing new, this year’s figures show … Continue reading “ESRC success rates by discipline: what on earth is going on?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,10,6,13,11,18,20,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-esrc","category-frustrations","category-funding","category-funding-policy","category-public-sector","category-research-costs","category-research-impact","category-university-culture"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1OLY1-9g","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialscienceresearchfunding.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialscienceresearchfunding.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialscienceresearchfunding.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialscienceresearchfunding.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialscienceresearchfunding.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=574"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/socialscienceresearchfunding.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":763,"href":"https:\/\/socialscienceresearchfunding.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions\/763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialscienceresearchfunding.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialscienceresearchfunding.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialscienceresearchfunding.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}