Tagged / Martin Pickard

RCUK success rates published! Exciting news!

Research news

RCUK logoLast week the Research Councils published their success rates for the period April 2011 to March 2012. The key message seems to be that demand management measures are working; most Councils have seem a decline in the number of applications and a rise in success rates, despite a decrease in the amount of funding allocated.

Demand management, the term given to the steps taken by RCUK and the Research Councils to reduce the amount of applications they receive, now features in the plans of all of the Research Councils. This is because the Research Councils are receiving more applications that they are able to support and research institutions currently submit more applications than are likely to be funded. The costs of administering such large quantities of applications is a huge burden for the Research Councils and reduces the amount of money available to fund research. Large quantities of applications also place a heavy burden on the peer reviewers, thus increasing the risk that the quality of decision-making could be compromised. RCUK note that “there are some proposals submitted which have little or no chance of success” and that steps should be taken at both applicant and institution level to pre-sift these proposals prior to submission, therefore reducing the volume of applications submitted to Research Councils.

Read more about the demand management measures that the Research Councils have put in place here: Demand Management

The table on the right shows the success rates over the past three years for the four main Research Councils to which BU makes applications – AHRC, EPSRC, ESRC and NERC. For all Councils, bar the ESRC, the success rate has increased year on year although it is worth noting that the ESRC claim that since they started requiring institutions to sift applications prior to submission (June 2011) it has recorded an overall success rate of 24%. We will have to wait until the 2012-13 success rates are published to see if this trend follows through into the statistics for the year, but the early signs are promising.

In 2010-11 BU’s success rate with Research Councils was 0%, despite 16 applications being submitted. This year we have submitted less applications (10) and our success rate has increased to 10% – which is excellent news! The successful application was written with advice and guidance from Dr Martin Pickard who facilitates our Grants Academy workshops. Whilst there are many reasons why grants are awarded this is a good sign that the advice given during these workshops and on individual proposals is beneficial and can help make your proposal a success. BU has had more grants awarded from the Research Councils over the past year, however the stats only show against the lead institution so successful bids where BU is the collaborating institution are not shown against BU in the data.

The key message here is to spend time writing and refining fewer applications, making use of the support available (such as the internal peer review and the Grants Academy), and making sure your applications are of as high a quality as possible prior to submission.

BU is especially keen to reduce the number of bids submitted to Research Councils whilst significantly increasing the quality of those which are submitted. BU initiatives, such as the internal peer review scheme (RPRS) and the Grants Academy, have been specifically established to support academics to design, write and structure competitive, fundable research proposals and to maximise their chances of being awarded funding. It is excellent to see that these initiatives are so popular amongst academic colleagues and I would encourage you to make use of the support available.

Read more about the 2011-12 success rates on the Times Higher website: Limit on demand lifts grant award success rates and Hard line pays dividends (but not hard cash

 

First grant proposal submitted

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research

I joined DEC as a lecturer about a year ago. My research focuses on mining streaming data. We are building predictive models (e.g. to recommend an interesting text to a user) that can diagnose themselves and automatically adapt to changes in data over time.

This week I submitted my first grant proposal as a principal investigator. When I was asked to share my experiences on preparing the proposal, I thought I’d rather wait for the outcome. Still, in this post I will share some experiences and tips for those planning to apply for their first grant, which I think are valid no matter if my proposal gets funded.

Start early. Preparing the proposal took about six months. I started drafting the proposal back in October-November. In November I attended an excellent internal workshop on bidding given by Dr. Martin Pickard. I highly recommend to attend his workshops if you have an opportunity. They give you an insight perspective on bidding processes.

Decide about the funding program and stick to it (right after you have an idea about the content and potential collaborators). I have some experience in preparing proposals at my previous institutions (not as a PI, including successful bids), The content requirements seem to vary a lot. So you need to tailor your proposal. I picked the First Grant Scheme within EPSRC, which is a very nice option for early career researchers. The proposals are evaluated only against other early career researchers and no previous experience as a PI is expected.

Decide what you want to get from the bid. A research assistant? Equipment? Contact RKE OPS right from the start, you may be surprised how little fits under the estimated budget, because there are overheads. For instance, the funding cap for the First Grant within EPSRC is 125 TGBP, which effectively means that you can budget a research assistant for up to one year, some of your time, maybe some equipment or some traveling and that’s it. RKE OPS will give you advices on the financial side and help you to do your budget. Your budget restricts how much content you can plan for the proposal to be realistic and feasible, so this should be one of the first decisions to make.

Get as much feedback as you can. During the process I got three reviews from the internal review process (the RPRS, contact Caroline O’Kane), multiple feedbacks from Caroline herself, feedbacks from my line manager, feedbacks from the organizer and the participants of an external workshop on bidding that I attended, and from Dr. Martin Pickard by phone as a follow up of the workshop in November. All this feedback was extremely valuable and helped me to shape my proposal. That also gave a perspective how people from different fields see the proposal and which parts need to be clarified. I must say incorporating the feedback was much more challenging than writing the first draft. Naturally, there were quite some opposing comments and contradicting views by different people. First I was confused, but later I found that extremely valuable, as that helped me to form a big picture of the bidding philosophy.

I’ve learned a lot during this process. I am very grateful to all the reviewers and the research support people for their support. Thanks!

Two fantastic training sessions for EU submissions in February at BU!

EU

I’m delighted to announce that the brilliant Dr Martin Pickard of the company Grantcraft will be returning to Bournemouth in February. Martin has 25 years of winning EU funding and an excellent track record in helping academics write successful proposals.

EU Funding & Grant Writing:With FP7 drafts being released already, I’ve invited Martin to host a one day workshop on EU funding and grant writing, as it is very different from UK funders. I organised this session last year and the feedback we received from staff who attended was excellent“I must say it’s a great workshop, which provides us a number of important points we should pay attention to while drafting our proposals.”. This will take place in K103 (Kimmeridge House, Talbot Campus) on February 15th and all refreshments and lunch will be included. Attending this session will also enable you to access Martin’s excellent reviewing skills for your submission until September, which is fantastic.

Marie Curie Fellowships:  These grants are absolutely the best way to kick start your EU career; they have a fantastic success rate for applications (40%) and you only need one other EU partner. You can either apply to have an academic come to the university from Europe or you can go to another European country as part of the fellowship scheme. BU has had success with Marie Curie grants before and Martin is an absolute expert in writing these types of grant. This session will be dedicated to selecting the right grant for you and how to write a fantastic proposal. This will take place in EB203(Exec Business Centre, Lansdowne Campus) on February 16th and all refreshments and lunch will be included. Attending this session will also enable you to access Martin’s excellent reviewing skills for your submission until the official deadline in September.

 

Booking for either day is compulsory as numbers are limited and each day will run 9:30-5 and will include lunch and refreshments. Please register for the event here stating which session you would like to attend (you may attend both if you wish), and stating any dietary requirements and any special arrangements you may require for attending.

BU academics win AHRC grant!

Awarded & submitted bids

We heard some excellent news at the end of last week that BU academics Dr Bronwen Thomas and Dr Julia Round, both based in the Media School, have been awarded funding from the AHRC!

The research project, due to start imminently, aims to understand the impact of digital transformations on the reading process. Digital technologies have made it much easier for readers to participate in a wide range of activities around their reading, including connecting with other readers, commenting on a range of texts, and even writing stories themselves.  Online communities and fan forums present researchers with a wealth of data not only on what readers are reading, but how they are reading and engaging with texts. This data is potentially invaluable, especially in a context where reading is supposedly in decline, and where new devices such as ereaders are threatening to supplant the printed book.  This project will investigate the implications of these changes, and how they may potentially benefit a wide range of stakeholders, including those working in education and in the creative industries, as well as academics interested in readers and audiences.  The research will provide insights into emerging forms, practices and epistemologies amongst readers, while also reflecting on the ethical and methodological implications for researchers engaged in this kind of activity.

This is an excellent achievement, congratulations Bronwen and Julia 🙂

Bronwen and Julia’s successful proposal was reviewed internally via our internal peer review scheme (the RPRS) prior to submission, and they also received support from Martin Pickard during one of his grant writing sessions. BU regularly hosts these sessions with Martin – keep an eye on the Blog for the next one to be advertised! It is strongly advised that all research proposals are reviewed via the RPRS prior to submission. See our RPRS webpage or contact Caroline O’Kane for further details.