Tagged / ECRs

Think broader – bid internationally!

Funding opportunities

There are literally thousands of funding opportunities open to researchers in the UK, and many of these are offered by international funding bodies. You can see a basic list of non-UK funding bodies offering large pots of funding here: Large non-UK funding pots 

The chart on the left shows how much income a selection of the regional universities received for research contracts from non-EU sources in 2008-09 (click on the chart to see it full screen). BU has not previously actively promoted these funding pots but they are there for the taking and as our national research funding pots are reducing coupled with ever-increasing competition for funds, we should be actively targetting alternative sources.

In addition to the large funding pots available, there are thousands of funding bodies offering relatively small amounts of funding. If you are a new researcher then these are an excellent way to start/develop your research career. Winning a handful of these smaller grants will put you in a much better position to start winning larger, more prestigious grants, such as those from the UK Research Councils. They will give you project management experience and give future funders the confidence that you are capable of conducting good research and delivering a project.

As the world’s largest funding database, Research Professional is an excellent place to start identifying non-EU funding opportunities. We have put together a guide on how to set up a personal search in Research Professional so you can start to identify and apply to these funding pots. You can download the guide here: RP international funding guide.

To discuss possible international funding opportunities or for support in submitting a proposal contact the CRE Operations team who will happily advise and guide you through the process.

Publication, publication, publication!

Guidance

VC Jonty de WolfeIt was with mixed feelings that I settled down to watch the first episode of Campus last night. Would it be funny, would I get the in-jokes, would they mention research, or would it be too close to the mark and therefore too painful to watch? The main thrust of the episode saw Vice Chancellor Jonty de Wolfe pressuring English professor Matt Beer to write a best selling publication, as one of his colleagues in another department had recently managed, but unfortunately the professor was too distracted to comply. Replace distracted with another word (perhaps busy, unsure, pressured) and this may resonate a little better with BU.

Whilst Campus was far fetched and at times utterly ridiculous, the pressures on academics to produce high impact publications are very true, especially now as we are preparing for our submission to the REF. Rather than acting like tyrannical and eccentric VC de Wolfe, we’ve pulled together some sources of information for academics feeling the pressure of publication.

How to get published – The Times Higher Education have produced an excellent booklet – How to get Published: a Guide for Academics. The guide includes the seven chapters, written by experts in academic publishing, including advice and information on the publication process, getting your work into an academic journal, and how to turn your research into a best seller (I’m sure this last chapter would have been useful for the Professor in Campus last night).

journalsHow to get published in academic journals – The road to getting published in academic journals can be a daunting journey. There is a booklet published by PSA/Wiley-Blackwell called Publishing in Politics: a Guide for New Researchers which is an excellent introduction to publishing recommended for researchers in all disciplines, not just politics.

Professor Keith Dowding (LSE) has produced a couple of guides for those new to getting published in academic journals which are particularly useful. These were published in European Political Science and provide an overview of the journal publishing journey:

Individual journal publishers usually provide advice and guidelines for prospective authors – these can normally be found on their websites.

Open access publishing – BU has a central budget for paying for open access publishing costs. Read more here.

Do you have any advice on getting published that could benefit your colleagues? If so share it here by adding a comment to the BU Research Blog!