An Introduction to Postdoctoral Research Funding Sam Lambshead Sam.Lambshead@bristol.ac.uk Research Development Associate Research and Enterprise Development, University of Bristol 3 June 2019
To be covered in this session • Introduction to funders and key (not all!) schemes • What makes a good application? • Q&As
Why apply for Funding? A job! Time and freedom to research Enables you to own your research Enables collaborations Career Advancement Brings in funds to your Faculty/School
Key Government Funders Government Departments Future for EU is uncertain (!) Until Brexit UK Gov. will underwrite applications submitted. H2020 activity to continue in all exit scenarios – under ‘no deal’ ERC (Marie-Curie) will cease
Learned Societies and Charities Charities Learned Societies 5
Common types of research funding Early Career Small Grant/Seed Project Grant Fellowship funding . Researcher-led Preliminary data Can involve teams of About career development/ collection/feasibility studies. researchers and partners – it Transition to independent Organise meetings/symposia may be a requirement for researcher. Likely to or networking – often some. ECR routes may also encourage training and forming the basis for a include a career support from the host bigger bid development angle. university Tends to Pay salary costs and Tends not to cover Normally contributes to some research expenses – investigator salary , but can researcher salary or budgets don’t often allow for pay for research expenses replacement teaching. – also research teams and some research support other research expenses (RA, (RA or Admin) travel ect.)
Common types of research funding Knowledge Conference/Events/Travel Networking exchange/Impact funding To bring together individuals NOT for new research. To Smaller awards to fund normally from different increase the reach and individuals to attend disciplines or sectors to impact of your existing meetings, conferences or discuss a particular theme, research to new audiences. other events – can be to issue or problem. normally a contribute to costs of series of events rather than organising your own events one-off. For the cost of travel and May contribute to salary. Will not normally cover hosting the meetings, not PI Costs of reaching new salary. Most universities have salary – may cover the cost of audience (e.g. travel, public their own internal funding for an administrator to org engagement activities this. (DTPS/CDTS also)
Definition of ECR . Normally set Key amount of time Post-PhD, but that can be measured from your viva date, submission of eligibility thesis or award of PhD. ALL funders will take into account periods of maternity/ paternity and criteria for illness in this calculation. Contractual status. S ome ECR funding schemes will only allow you apply if you don’ t have a permanent contract some require some kind of contract in place permanent or otherwise and some have no limitations at all.
Home Truths…. Just because you are eligible for a funding scheme , it does not mean you will be competitive. Most funders do not allow for resubmissions - you may only have one shot at the scheme. You need to be honest with yourself. Is this really the best time? Will you be more competitive for a future funding round? A difficult choice…. You will fail at some point. – learn from it – you can take positives from failure (good blog post from Olivia Maynard here - https:/ / blog.esrc.ac.uk/ tag/ olivia- maynard/ )
What the fEC? Many Publicly funded grants (eg Research Councils) are awarded at 80% of the full Economic Cost (fEC) of the project. The Research Organisation is expected to make up the remaining 20% fEC is defined as – a cost which, if recovered across an organisation’s full programme, would recover the total cost (direct, indirect and total overhead) including an adequate recurring investment in the organisation’s infrastructure Charities (e.g, Wellcome, Leverhume and Nuffield) do not fund on a fEC basis. Overheads for research from these funders are covered in part by a separate fund called the Charity S upport Fund which is paid to Bristol as a block of funding by Research England. fEC essentially means that your budget may not go as far as you think… … a full- time starting salary for 24 Months with indirect costs will cost over £200k!
Key Research Council Funders: AHRC & ESRC • We investigate the values and beliefs which underpin both who we are as individuals and how we undertake our responsibilities to our society and to humanity globally. • We explore human interactions and the evolution of identities over time. They help us understand not only how individuals and societies operate, but why and with what consequences, both for themselves and for others. • Making sense of our historical past, literary and artistic achievements, ability to translate across cultures, and the foundations of knowledge itself . • promote and support, by any means, high-quality research and related postgraduate training on social and economic issues • develop and support the national data infrastructure that underpins high-quality research • advance knowledge and provide trained social scientists who meet the needs of users and beneficiaries, thereby contributing to the economic competitiveness of the UK, the effectiveness of public services and policy, and the quality of life • communicate clearly and promote public understanding of social science
AHRC/ESRC Shared Areas Cultural policy Communications, Area and cultural and Studies Education management media studies Social Anthropology Gender studies Science and Technology Human Studies geography Areas in which AHRC and ESRC Religious Studies History share responsibility International Philosophy Librarianship relations Law and information Linguistics science 12 More detail in the joint statement here - https://esrc.ukri.org/files/funding/guidance-for- applicants/interfaces-between-the-arts-and-humanities-and-the-social-sciences/
Generous S uitable for those who have some Post-doctoral definition of early experience – must have a contract in place for most career ! schemes (perm or temp) within Research Grants + ECR route 8 years of your PhD or within (as an RA or PI ) 6 years of your first as PI must have a contract (f/t or p/t perm, or fixed term at point of application academic appointment • Collaborative research projects (needs a Co-I) • Full economic cost between £50,000 - £1m (£250k ECR route) and for a duration of up to • 60 months Also – for PGRS & ECRS Leadership Fellowships +ECR Route Must be salaried staff for a year prior to submission. At least two years post PhD experience needed New Generation Thinkers (with BBC ) Projects up to 24mths, fEC salary plus costs (up to £250k ) for research communication to a general audience – For individual research project No funding attached. Annual, Autumn Launch AND collaborative leadership activities for your field . International Placement Scheme (IPS) with ESRC Research networking For research in one of seven research institutes (Library of Congress, Smithsonian, Ransom Center, Yale Centre for British Up to 24 months – a series of events that bring together Art, Huntington Library, NIHU Japan, Shanghai Theatre academy ) interdisciplinary or cross sector teams to address a particular contributes to living expenses and travel. theme or challenge Annual, Autumn Launch up to £45k (fEC)
Postdoctoral Fellowships To provide career development opportunity for those immediately post-PhD (within 12 months of Viva for the call close, last call was 22 Mar 19) New Investigator Grants For researchers up to four years post-PhD (submission of thesis) with or without full contracts Fellowship and project based – £300k (fEC) up to 5 years Secondary Data Analysis (Revised May 2018) Aims to Maximise the use of key ESRC-funded and other data resources No longer Requires an ECR to be a part of the team, but capacity building is a key aim. Focus on the generation of non-academic impact Up to £300,000 (fEC) for 24 months
Postdoctoral Fellowships Deadlines fall in mid- March The objective of this call is to provide support to those who are within 12 months of completing their PhD , to support them in consolidating their PhD, and preparing them for the next stage of their research careers . For the majority this is likely to be a research career in academia; however, those with a clearly articulated programme of activities to support the transition to a research career outside of academia, can also be considered (eg a researcher in public, private, or civil society organisations ) The process is run by DTPs not ES RC.
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