Grants – what’s the deal and why
win them anyway?
Wednesday 31st October 2012
Professor Alistair Fitt,
Pro Vice-Chancellor,
Research and Knowledge Transfer
Research grants
1. How research grants are funded in the UK
2. How most of the competitions are run
3. Advantages of winning a grant
1. Dual Research funding in the UK
RCUK
Public money given to the Research Councils + others to run
competitions (“grants”) to distribute money to universities. The
competitions sort of go on continuously and about £3 bn is
available each year (AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC, MRC,
NERC, STFC). About £22m (JISC) and about £300m TSB) is also
available – more about this in a minute
REF (used to be “RAE”)
Public money distributed to universities (about £1.6 bn per year) via
a once-every-seven-years competition where each university
enters its best researchers.
1. Teaching funding in the UK
HEFCE
Public money given to Universities – about £4.5 bn per year for
teaching – universities considered to be a public good
CANCELLED BY THE COALITION
– BILL SENT TO STUDENTS
Yes, the teaching budget has dropped by 80% in a
single year and gone from £4.5 bn down to £0.8 bn!
FUNDING IS A POLITICAL ISSUE, but.....
Dear Mr Willetts
Will private providers be
allowed to apply for research
grants as well as publiclyfunded loans?
Your sincerely etc.
1. Total public spending in the UK
ITEM
TOTAL (£ bn)
Pensions
129
Health care
124
Education
93
Defence
47
Welfare
110
TOTAL (with other bits)
703
TOTAL PUBLIC SPENDING 2012 ~ £703 bn
COMPLETE TOTAL FOR RESEARCH ~ £5 bn per year (< 1%)
Give us the money!
We win anyway. So there.
Most other
measures
show the same
Rough sizes of funding bodies
£m
AHRC
Arts & Humanities
100
BBSRC
Biotech & Biological Sciences
450
EPSRC
Engineering & Physical Sciences
800
ESRC
Economic & Social Sciences
170
MRC
Medical
750
NERC
Natural & Environmental
400
STFC
Science & Technology Facilities
630
Leverhulme
Lever Brothers Charity
60
JISC
Joint Information Systems
22
TSB
Technology Strategy Board
300
Roy Soc
Royal Society
50
£3.3bn
£0.4 bn
Our income (approx)
Headline figures:
 University turnover ~ £170 p/a
 QR income from RAE is about £4m p/a
 Total research grants (hard to measure) are about £6m p/a
 PhD student fees are about £1m p/a
WE NEED MORE RESEARCH INCOME!
Other sources (there are many
others too!)
Europe
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FP1 (1984-88) - FP6 already took place - FP7 (2007-13) is now “in play”
FP8 = “Horizon 2020” starts in 2014 – total fund €70 bn
A range of schemes
Typically need to go in with at least 3 European partners
We ought to do much better from Europe
About €360 bn available over 6 years from European Structural Funds
Charities
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Many are not FEC’d (I’ll define this in a minute!)
Many are very specific (Gates, Stichting, Wellcome, Howard Hughes, etc.)
Many can be hard to access without professional help
Wait – what’s the “FEC” thing that I
keep hearing?
FEC
Stands for “Full economic costing” (not “future England captain”)
The idea is that it doesn’t only pay the “direct cost of the research”
(people, travel, equipment, computers, ink cartridges etc.)
- but also for heating, lighting, new buildings, infrastructure etc.
(the “indirect costs”)
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RCUK pays about 80% of FEC
Europe pays about 60% of FEC (will change soon)
Many charities pay 0% of FEC – or maybe even -20%!
Many are tempted by the lure of ANY money.............
but if your portfolio is not balanced then the buildings fall down!
2. How do I win a grant?
Simple - you have a good idea and apply
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Many run by peer review
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There are “open” and “closed” calls
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Understanding the rules is often of crucial importance
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Hard to apply “on spec” - some organisation needed
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Some people are just sort of good at it
2. Don’t panic - help is available!
Lots of help is available! This includes
• RBDO
• Faculty Grant panels
• Colleagues in your Faculty
• The funders themselves
RBDO
Research and Business Development Office
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Extremely capable and experienced staff
Live mostly in the Buckley Building
Always happy to help with advice, costing etc.
......or just to talk about opportunities
Can give you access to lots of helpful materials
Have all sorts of “inside knowledge” – have seen it all before!
NOTE: we INSIST that you tell RBDO
about any application that you make!
Don’t make us
turn the money
down!
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Why do we insist that you tell RBDO?
I’ve heard pretty much all of these......
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• “I costed it myself – I thought that it would come out cheaper that way!
• “It’s OK – I don’t mind doing research for a cigarette company!”
• “Oh dear - I didn’t realise that human experiments would require ethical
approval. They weren’t badly injured though........”
• “Errrm yes – I signed to say that we’ed provide the £100,000 electron
microscope – that’s OK, isn’t it?”
• “I have the money for the PhD student’s first year and I promised them
that I’d arrange the rest later”
• “I signed all the IPR away – I don’t care about that sort of thing”
• “I didn’t put anything in about insurance or tax – too complicated!”
Faculty Grant Panels
We want to submit the very best applications possible
For this reason, each Faculty runs a “Grant Panel”, which:
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Meets regularly
Can shepherd applications through the process
Acts as a “critical friend”
Can provide advice, mentoring, general guidance and other help
Helps to broker and organise more complicated applications
Means that only good quality applications go in
Makes sure that you’ve read the rules and understand the conditions
Allows the Faculty to have an overview of grant applications
Can allot different resources to different-sized grants
Colleagues in your Faculty
Use your colleagues!
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There WILL be people around who have won grants
You could do a joint one for your first application
People can help you and show you “ones that made it”
Apart from RBDO, there are
• Colleagues who have lots of experience
• Faculty Research Managers
• Faculty Research Leads
• Lots of other Faculty research people
• Maybe colleagues from other universities (joint bids)
• Maybe colleagues from industry (more joint bids)
The main thing is – you don’t have to “go it alone”
The funders themselves
Never underestimate the wisdom of speaking to the
funding body to which you are applying!
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The research Councils etc. are there to give out the money fairly
They’d rather give advice before you and they spend lots of time on the
application!
They can give lots of advice on a “without prejudice” basis
They can explain the point of the call, and what they hope to see
It’s good for us to let them to see our engagement – “radar”
Remember, they have lots of money, so logically they are our friends,
not our enemies!
Getting “in” with RCUK
Never turn down the chance of getting “in” with RCUK!
There are many ways of “getting acquainted” with the Research Councils:
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Referee grant proposals if/when asked
Be on evaluation panels if/when asked (a great “inside track”)
CHAIR panels if possible
Accept invitations to join “peer review college”
DEFINITELY accept invitations to be on SATS etc.
This all may lead to international reviews etc.
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Finally, many people are disappointed when they don’t get funding. If
you can be a FRIEND to RCUK then they will value you
3. Why should I get a grant?
Let’s be honest, it IS competitive and we’ve all had failed applications.
BUT - apart from the wonderful research that you will do, there are
many other good reasons for getting a grant:
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It identifies you as a good researcher – by peer judgement
It makes you a bigger player on the research scene
Increases total University income and “profit” (if FEC’d)
It allows us to build research capability (increases total researcher numbers)
It allows you to “get extra research done”
It gives you leadership experience
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Last but not least - it’s jolly good at promotion time!