Jumping on the Jumping on the Funded Funded

Research Research BandwagonBandwagon

Paul O’ReillyPaul O’ReillyDublin Institute of Dublin Institute of

TechnologyTechnology

Presentation to Faculty of Commerce Presentation to Faculty of Commerce and Centre for Innovation and and Centre for Innovation and

Structural Change, NUIGStructural Change, NUIG

BackgroundBackground• Food Marketing Research Group, The

National Food Centre, Teagasc.– Framework 5– Department of Agriculture and Food– Industry funded research

• Faculty of Business– Institute of Technology-specific schemes– Department of Agriculture and Food

OutlineOutline

• Benefits of involvement in funded research activities.

• Getting involved with funded research for the first time.

• Lessons learned from personal experience submitting funding proposals.

Why Get Involved in Why Get Involved in Funded Research Funded Research

Programmes?Programmes?

Benefits of Funded Benefits of Funded ResearchResearch

• Profile for individual researcher and faculty.

• Personal development.– Peer learning within research teams.

• Involvement in a formal and disciplined project plan.– Research gets done!– Removes isolating aspect of research work.

Benefits of Funded Benefits of Funded ResearchResearch

• Networking opportunities– Interaction with partners, agencies and

other stakeholders.

• Budgets. – Opportunity to bring existing research

activity to next stage of development (scale++, international++)

• Conference papers and publications.

Getting Involved in Getting Involved in Public Funded ResearchPublic Funded Research

Getting Started!Getting Started!• Be strategic.• Consider research ideas, objectives and

potential long term research programme.– Consider scale of research project(s) required.

• Identify appropriate funding schemes.– Seek advice and do own research.– Think laterally.– Research programme may be constructed

upon layers of schemes.

Experiences Preparing Experiences Preparing Research Proposals: Research Proposals:

A Researcher’s A Researcher’s PerspectivePerspective

Before You StartBefore You Start

• Successful proposals rarely put together days before deadline.– It takes time to generate high quality

proposals (3-6 months).– Identify appropriate and alternative

funding sources.– Check requirements and evaluation

criteria of potential funding schemes.– Don’t prepare proposals in isolation.

• Put together review committee before writing your proposal.

Communicate with Funding Communicate with Funding AgenciesAgencies

• Learn all you can about how funding scheme works and evaluation / review process.

• Talk to responsible person (especially if you are new to the scheme).

• Review successful projects.• Learn the system – seek evaluator role.• Understand the priorities and objectives of the

scheme.• Tailor project to the amount of money available. • Follow-up and keep in touch. • Request feedback.

Typical Evaluation CriteriaTypical Evaluation Criteria• Relevance of objectives to funding

programme priorities.• Quality of research plan.• Potential impact.

– Academic and industry gaps.

• Quality / capacity of the research team.• Management of project.• Dissemination.

Pay Attention to Every Criteria Pay Attention to Every Criteria and Information Requestand Information Request

Choosing PartnersChoosing Partners• Decision: Leader or follower.• Partners should complement each

other.– Each brings something distinctive to the

table.

• Consider formalising relationships with stakeholders of research project– Advisory panel

Scope of ProjectScope of Project• Do not try to do too much. • Think about what you plan to do

and keep it within bounds. • Avoid unrealistic estimates. • Consider academic and industry

contributions.• Keep the project focused.

– Less is more – submit one project and not a patchwork of several projects.

Make Life Easy Make Life Easy for Reviewersfor Reviewers

• Keep reviewer on your side – do not irritate them.

• Proposals should be neat, well organised, and easy to read.– Label sections clearly– Keep it short and simple– Guide reviewers with graphics– Edit and proof

Balance Technical and Balance Technical and Non-TechnicalNon-Technical

• Many reviewers will only scan application.• Reviewers may not be familiar with field or

methods.– Keep parts of the application most

reviewers read non-technical (e.g. aims, justification, abstract)

– Use technical detail only in methods section of proposal.

– Test drive your proposal on a non-specialist.

Communicating Communicating MethodologyMethodology

• Crucial section in research proposal.– Show you will perform the research.

• Think carefully about how to organise it. – Neat and simple work packages.– Indicate specific methodologies to be

used.– Time and resources. – Helpful to create a graphical timetable

showing responsibilities, milestones and outputs.

Be PersuasiveBe Persuasive

• Capture reviewers’ attention by making the case for why your project should be funded:– Justify project investment with supporting

evidence.– Explain why you are the person / team to do it.– Clearly illustrate gaps project will close.– Educate the reviewer – include enough

background material to enable the intelligent reader to understand.

Sell YourselfSell Yourself

• Reviewer will want to know whether you are capable of delivering.

– Showcase knowledge and skills of key personnel.

– Indicate relevant track record including publications (not standard CV).• Positions and honours • Selected peer-reviewed publications • Research support

– Make sure there are no gaps in team.• Bring out the ‘heavy-hitters’

Budget InformationBudget Information

• Budget and cost information should be clear and unambiguous.

• Project should show good ‘value for money’.

• Greed can kill! Cost of project must be realistic (+/-).– Project spend should reflect project activity.

• Budget should show evidence of careful reflection and realistic project planning.

• Request only enough money to do the work. – Review eligible and ineligible costs in scheme.

Be InnovativeBe Innovative• Give reviewer everything they

wanted and then give them something they didn’t expect.

– May impact on overall assessment– What happens with research once

completed?

• But don’t overdo it!

Success is Not Success is Not GuaranteedGuaranteed

Common ProblemsCommon Problems

• Problem not important enough.• Study not likely to produce useful

information.• Studies based on a shaky hypothesis or

data.• Methods unsuited to objective.• Problem more complex than investigator

appears to realise.• Too little detail in the research proposal to

convince reviewers the investigator knows what he/she is doing

Common ProblemsCommon Problems

• Over-ambitious research plan with an unrealistically large amount of work.

• Proposal not academic enough.• Lack of original or new ideas. • Investigator too inexperienced with the

proposed techniques. • Work packages too dependent on success

of an initial proposed findings. • Lack of focus in hypotheses, aims, and or

research plan.

Dealing with RejectionDealing with Rejection

• Ask: Is it fixable?– Assess how serious problems areOptions1. Revise and resubmit after addressing

fixable problems2. Revise and resubmit to a different

funding scheme3. Create a new application

Questions???Questions???