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Research Grants

What they are, where they come from, how they work…

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Research Grants

• Money paid to University to pay for:– Staff

• postdocs• Studentships• Support staff – secretaries, computer officers….• Teaching replacement

– Equipment– Travel

• Out to conferences and visits• In for visitors and workshops

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Some Sources of Grants (for Maths & CS)

• From richest and most bureaucratic to poorest & least bureaucratic– EU – Frameworks– EPSRC– Leverhulme Trust– Royal Society– Royal Society of Edi.– Nuffield Foundation– LMS– EMS

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Focus on EPSRCBut you shouldn’t forget the others

• Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council -- www.epsrc.ac.uk

• Fellowships– Post-doctoral, advanced, senior, knowledge transfer

• Smaller grants:– Overseas travel grants– Visiting Fellowships– Workshops– Networks

• Responsive mode – normal grants• First Grant• Assorted special schemes – eg Critical Mass

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Fellowships

• Fellowships are special– You apply to support yourself– Your chosen University agrees to employ you if you

get it – in practice usually easy to move– In practice you can apply for and get a lectureship

while on a PDRF or ARF, then start it with years of unpaid leave

• Only one application round per year, in autumn– For PDRF (theory only) < 3 years from formal PhD

decision to closing date, ARF 3-10 years– Don’t miss the boat!

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Standard Research Grants

• Very flexible in principle– 1 wk – 6 yrs– £500-£6m

• Mainly 2-3 years, £150K--£300K in CS, a bit less in maths

• Investigators must have a position longer than the grant– Except that existing RAs can be co-investigators

applying for their own salary (new)

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Price Points

• Although EPSRC denies it, grants cluster around certain “price points”, different in different subjects– If you aim for a higher price point, you need a more impressive

science case – In CS: £60K-£70K (a studentship), £100-120K (first grant, 2 year

postdoc), £200-250K (3 year postdoc & a student), £300-350K (big grant, two postdocs or a postdoc & a student and big computers)

• Anything off the top of this scale is very unlikely to fly as a “standard research grant”

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How It Works 1The Basic Grant Application

1. Fill in EPSRC form, prepare 8 page case for support and University pink form, Investigators and head of school sign

1. includes three referees names

2. Research Grants Finance Office (RGFO) provide costs for staff

2. RGFO check and sign, keep pink form + copy

3. Send original + eight copies to EPSRC

4. Catch up on sleep, teaching, life, etc.

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Electronic Submission

• Now mandatory, but I haven't tried it yet– All investigators need to get accounts – Fill in form on Web– Upload supporting documents in PDF– Submit on-line

• Sent automatically to head(s) of school(s) and RGFO to review

• Not sure how this works with deadlines

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How it Works 2What EPSRC does next

1. Paperwork checks, send to referees, usually one of yours + two or three of theirs

2. Reject outright if referees reports are bad3. For some schemes (travel, networks, first

grant) may accept if reports are good4. Otherwise goes to a panel

• Normally you get to see the referees reports and respond briefly before the panel

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EPSRC Panels

• Panels of a dozen or so – mainly academics, held every couple of months

• consider up to 50 grant applications– Have applications, referees reports, final reviews of

applicants previous grants,….• Consider scientific merit, and “justification of

resources” – not supposed to consider cost directly

• Panel ranks proposals – EPSRC decides how far down the list to fund

• Details of past panels on the Web

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Example PanelJuly 29 2004 Computer Science

• Prof. A Finkelstein (UCL)• Prof. J Derrick (Kent)

• Prof. Z Irani (Brunel) • Dr MJ Kirton (QinetiQ)• Dr GA McCusker (Sussex)• Dr J Shapiro (Manchester)

• Prof. S Stepney (York)• Prof. IA Stewart (Durham)

• Prof. Y Wilks (Sheffield)• Mrs J Edwards (EPSRC)

• Funded – 1/4 (£123K/390K) First Grant

Scheme– 11/41 (£2M/8M) Standard

grants

• Funded grants ranged from:– Algorithms of Nework-sharing

Games (£89K Warwick)– A Security Model For XML

(£309K Edinburgh)– Generative Programming for

Embedded Systems (£156K Kevin)

– etc.

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What Happens when you Get Funded 1?

• The “Grant progress tracker” on the EPSRC Web site goes to “decision reached”

• A week after the panel, you can phone EPSRC and ask what the decision was

• Usually you need to talk to them to agree the actual start date before they can send the formal letter to the University

• Research Grants Finance get the letter and give you an account code (like 1-SCS2-XEP279) to use to spend the money

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What happens when you get funded 2?

• If there are staff on the grant, Human Resources will send you terrifying documents about recruitment procedures

• You can start spending money when:– The start date is reached and– At least one person has started work (if there are

people on the grant)– Although you can bend this a bit

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Using the Money• You can pay for:

– Research staff as funded– Support staff, but tends to be

grabbed to pay for existing people

– Home/EU fees and maintenance for students

– Equipment (over £3K)– Consumables (under £3K)– Travel for people named on

grant• Have to justify conferences

not named• This isn’t closely policed

• You can move funds between categories “vire” fairly freely

• You can’t pay for– Your own salary, or teaching

replacement– “departmental computing

costs”– Travel by staff/postdocs not on

the grant– Overseas student fees

• The university sorts out the cash flow issues– You effectively have all the

money to spend from day 1• Remember that different

funders have different rules

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Overheads

• Funding bodies pay some money for “indirect costs” of staff – rooms, light, library, human resources, secretarial, etc.– EPSRC pays 46% of staff costs– EU pays 10% of everything– Leverhulme pays nothing

• At St Andrews most of this money goes to Schools (eventually), but may be siphoned off to help meet School deficits– Some is supposed to be earmarked for PI to spend, eg on

setting up the next grant

• This is going to change from Sep ’05 – “Full Economic Costs”

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Final Report

• You have to submit a final report within 3 months of the end of the grant– They keep back 10% of the money until you do– Also you can’t put in any other applications– Usual stuff about how successful it all was,

publications, etc.– Justification for moving money between headings,

attending extra conferences

• This report goes to a referee or two• Their assessment is sent to panel with your

subsequent applications

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Writing the Application

• Apart from boring factual stuff and costs, you have to produce– Summary, relevance to beneficiaries, and objectives

(4000 chars each) for the form– 2 page track record– 6 page case for support– 1 page diagrammatic project plan– CVs of named researchers

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The Generic Application 1The Basic Message

• Area X is really important. – Famous people have worked in it, – it has led to important discoveries

• Subarea Y is important and topical– Reasonably famous people have worked in it recently

• What subarea Y really needs right now is a thorough and systematic investigation of topic Z

• The investigators are uniquely well qualified and equipped to do that investigation – fund them!

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The Generic Application 2The Subtext

• We know what we’re talking about– We have a clear idea what we want to do– We know the recent and current work in the field– We have some understanding of a larger context for it

• We have some idea how we might go about the investigation– You have to give ludicrous detail, but it doesn’t matter

• We are reliable– We can organise ourselves enough to do the work

and hand in the final report on time– We are willing to cooperate in helping EPSRC prove

that it met its political goals

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Who you’re writing for 1

• EPSRC Admin– Key words in title and summary guide choice of

referees– Keep them sweet

• Do the paperwork right• Give them ammunition to prove to their bosses that they’re

meeting their goals

• Your nominated referees– presumably they’re going to support you– give them ammunition to make their case– Give them things to put in all the parts of the form.

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Who You’re Writing For 2

• EPSRC nominated referees– Will read the whole thing, reasonably close to the

area – Large luck element – friendly, neutral or hostile– Give ammunition to friendly referees; avoid things that

neutral referees might pick on; genuinely hostile referees are a lost cause

• The Panel– Will not read the whole thing, may not be in the area– Aim the summary and the first page or so of the Case

for Support at them, also beneficiaries and similar.

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Final Tips

• There is a large random element in the process – resubmitting virtually the same grant six months later

can work

• Coherence is important – the grant should be structured around a simple story– Line up aims, objectives, work packages, behind your

story

• Always try to see the referees form and write with it in mind (EPSRC ones on the Web)– Failing that, get the “criteria” for the scheme and

make sure you have addressed them all