Skip to main content

Bournemouth University

BU Research Blog

Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University

  • Home
  • RDS Team
    • RDS advice to academics during COVID-19
    • Faculty-Facing Staff
    • Funding Development Team
    • Project Delivery Team
    • Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team
  • Clinical Governance @ BU
  • Research Ethics @ BU
  • REF 2021
    • BU REF 2021 Code of Practice
    • Declaration of Staff Circumstances
    • BU’s Unit of Assessment Teams
    • REF FAQs
    • Archive – REF 2014
      • BU REF 2014 Code of Practice
      • REF 2014 Frequently Asked Questions
        • REF 2014 Overview
        • Staff eligibility
        • Mock REF 2014 (REF preparation) exercises at BU
        • REF 2014 Assessment of outputs
        • REF 2014 Staff selection
        • REF 2014 Equality and diversity
  • Impact
    • Partnerships & collaborations
    • Working with businesses
      • Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF)
    • Communicating your research
    • Influencing policy makers
    • Public engagement
      • Quick guide to public engagement
    • Student engagement
      • Stages of engagement
      • Case study: Sean Beer
      • Case study: James Gavin
      • Case study: Anna Feigenbaum
  • Research Toolkit
  • Research Lifecycle
  • Policy
  • PGR
    • The Doctoral College Team
    • Postgraduate Researcher Development Steering Group

September 15, 2020

“Data is King!” Grant extensions and protecting your datastreams.

Awarded & submitted bids, ECR Network, Fusion phartley

Touker Suleyman of Dragon’s Den fame, said that, in business, ‘Cash is King’. Gender-dependent references aside, I’d say it’s data that tops the hierarchy in research. Whilst leading grants is a complicated, bureaucratic and often thankless task, it is balanced by the joy and reassurance of data rolling in. With data, the mind is stimulated, the reasoning begins and interpretations are developed. These datastreams feed the outputs, they feed the applications. Data is the cash of research. As the datastream dries-up, the returns on research investment dwindle. Research eventually goes bust and talented people are lost from the system.

The hiatus to research activity caused by lockdown has been double edged. Researchers have used what was otherwise wasted commuting time to develop new grant proposals, helping shift an equilibrium from the fiscal reliance on students towards fully economically costed grant income. By doing so, the future of research-led university teaching is more secure; that synergy between research, practice and teaching has been reinvigorated by new logistics and necessity. On the other hand, lockdown has been a nightmarish experience; a threat to the datastreams we rely on. Labs have been closed, projects are on hold, careers are in jeopardy.

Grant awarding agencies have mitigated the negative outcomes of lockdown, by providing extensions to staff contracts as well as no-cost extensions. It’s important that researchers at all career stages appreciate the existence and importance of extensions. The medical science grants I’m associated with have received very generous no-cost extensions (thank you Kidney Research UK!), allowing us to sustain our efforts but they’ve also indirectly helped by allowing me to  completely re-write a major grant application affected by lockdown. Circumstances have dictated that I apply for extensions a few times, to support staff and protect projects. In my experience, most awarding agencies employ a flexible (yet diligently cautious) approach to extending grant deadlines. This provides security for early career researchers and research assistants, which therefore protects that all important datastream.

Thankfully, the response to the current situation has seen extensions being applied across all areas of research activity. It’s in everyone’s interest to request and be given these extensions. They protect people and by doing so, the datastream.

Not all early career researchers are aware of extensions but you should be, they are an important means for successfully managing your future team! All grant awarding agencies have extension policies and I’d recommend re-reading the information posted by BU’s RDS team with links to the UK funding agencies Covid-19 info. https://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/contact/rds-advice-to-academics-during-covid-19/uk-funder-news/

Best wishes,
Paul.

 

Tags: biological science biomedical science early career researchers grant management Medical Science

Related Posts

  • Data is King – Let’s talk about Data ScienceJune 20, 2016
  • £4M Protecting Data in IndustryFebruary 24, 2015
  • European Research Council- Starting Grant and Consolidator Grant figuresMarch 15, 2016
  • SciTech PGR Aishah Selamat awarded with UK Data Service Data Impact Fellowship AwardApril 24, 2018

BU staff can login below:

Other services

Don’t miss a post!

Subscribe for the BU Research Digest, delivered freshly every day.


 

Recent posts

BU research Funding opportunities EU
  • COVID-19: Should psychologists know how to deal with this?April 22, 2021
  • RDS Academic and Researcher Induction – 19th May 2021April 22, 2021
  • Research impact at BU: representation of para-athletes in the media & protecting the right to use parodyApril 22, 2021
  • Charity Impact Funding PanelApril 22, 2021
  • Research Impact Funding PanelApril 22, 2021
  • Cafe Scientifique – Tuesday 4 May: Are the world’s ecosystems about to collapse?April 22, 2021
  • Charity Impact Funding PanelApril 22, 2021
  • Research Impact Funding PanelApril 22, 2021
  • Digital Society Research: a major funding opportunity alertApril 21, 2021
  • Funding Development Briefing – Spotlight on Horizon Europe – Digital, Climate and Food Work ProgrammesApril 21, 2021
  • HEIF Funding PanelApril 20, 2021
  • The ACORN Fund Additional Round is Now Open for Applications!April 19, 2021
  • ERC Have Announced Tentative Dates for 2022 CallsApril 12, 2021
  • BU working with top European universities on Strategic Investment AreasMarch 15, 2021
  • HE policy update for the w/e 11th March 2021March 15, 2021
  • Horizon Europe: Early Information on the Proposal TemplateMarch 1, 2021
  • ERC Confirms Upcoming Call DeadlinesFebruary 23, 2021
  • Embedding UN SDGs in Teaching Entrepreneurship at BUFebruary 15, 2021

Search by Category

Search by popular post topics

AHRC Brexit BRIAN BU research clinical research CMMPH collaboration collaborative research conference congratulations dementia ESRC EU Europe event Events Festival of Learning FP7 funding funding opportunities Fusion Fusion Investment Fund Health horizon 2020 HSC impact innovation knowledge exchange media midwifery Nepal nhs open access Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen publication public engagement publishing ref research Research Councils research professional RKE development framework social sciences training widening participation

RSS Research Information Network

  • Physical Sciences Case studies: information use and discovery
  • Information handling in collaborative research: an exploration of five case studies
  • Information literacy monitoring and evaluation
  • Data centres: their use, value and impact
  • Heading for the open road: costs and benefits of transitions in scholarly communications

RSS UKRI

Browse all our categories
  • Awarded & submitted bids
  • BRIAN
  • BU Challenges
  • BU research
  • BU2025
  • Business Engagement
  • Centre for Excellence in Learning
  • Clinical Governance
  • Coffee Morning
  • conferences
  • COVID-19
  • data management
  • Delicious links
  • Doctoral College
  • ECR Network
  • EPSRC
  • ESRC
  • EU
  • Events
  • Featured
  • Featured academics
  • Festival of Learning
  • Funding opportunities
  • Fusion
  • Fusion Investment Fund
  • Fusion themes
  • Global engagement
  • Grants Academy
  • Guidance
  • hate crime
  • HEIF
  • HSS Our 9 Research Entities
  • humanities
  • Impact
  • Industry collaboration
  • Info Days
  • innovation
  • international
  • Knowledge Exchange
  • Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team
  • Knowledge Transfer
  • Knowledge Transfer Partnership
  • News from the PVC
  • nhs
  • NHS
  • open accecss
  • open access
  • parliament
  • Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology
  • PG research
  • policy
  • Post-award
  • Postgraduate Research
  • pre-award
  • Public engagement
  • Publishing
  • R & KE Operations
  • REF Subjects
  • Research assessment
  • Research Centres
  • Research communication
  • Research Concordat
  • Research Ethics
  • Research Integritiy
  • research integrity
  • Research news
  • research staff
  • Research themes
  • Research Training
  • RKE development framework
  • staff profile pages
  • Strategic Investment Areas
  • Student Engagement
  • student research
  • the conversation
  • Training
  • Uncategorized
  • Vitae
  • Women's Academic Network
  • writing
  • Twitter

© Bournemouth University 2021. All rights reserved.

  • Charitable status
  • Website privacy & cookies
  • Copyright and terms of use