EPSRC Grantsmanship Session

On 11 November 2009, I attended the EPSRC grantsmanship course at the University of Manchester. It was a packed day with lots of useful information provided by Prof. Richard Winpenny (the EPS faculty's Associate Dean for Research), and Susan Soulsby and Derek Gillespie, who are Portfolio Managers and contacts for the University of Manchester at EPSRC. The following is a summary of the most prominent points made in addition to the information on the handouts, subject to the weighting of this blog's author. ;-)

Research Information for the EPS faculty

The success rate in our faculty is with 20–25% lower than the general rate of 30–35%. The reasons are not obvious, but this result is another evidence against the previously advertised strategy of putting in as many grant proposals as possible. The advice is to submit few good proposals rather than many mediocre ones.

In general, the proportion of EPSRC grants in the faculty's grant portfolio is constantly around 67%, which may become problematic if the government will further decrease spending for academic research.

The Schools' Research Administrators are the most important source of support for writing grants, and hence maximising researchers' time for research. The Research Admins give information on programmes, provide the costing etc. Be particularly nice to them!

Another way of maximising academics' time for research is to take sabbatical leave. The University does not have a rule that you can have one every seventh year (but particular schools may have). Just speak to your line manager when you feel the need for a sabbatical.

Writing a successful grant application

It is almost more important for the idea to be interesting than right. Why you want to do this is always the first question. Does you idea excite your colleagues?

Always show your proposal to several colleagues, including hypercritical ones. Only this way will you get sufficient feedback be able to prepare you proposal for the reviews. Iterate the procedure

1. Show proposal to hypercritical colleague
2. Receive blistering criticism
3. Improve proposal

until the reaction is: "your proposal is not so bad anymore". Then submit it.

For a proposal in EPSRC Resposive Mode (or First Grant), you can name three reviewers, of which one will be chosen by the Portfolio Manager, plus 2–5 others, depending on recirculation. Interestingly, the reviewers chosen by applicants often give the most critical reviews. As for international reviewers, it's possible to choose them—and often this cannot be avoided. However, you should make sure that they are familiar with the UK system: they need to know that it's harder than in other countries to get a project funded by a research council, and that this can only be achieved if most marks are "very good" or "outstanding". Different communities and nationalities have very different approaches to this. As a result, there are often discrepancies in reviews between the verbal comments and the ticked boxes. This will be less of a problem with the changed review forms (see below).

If someone who is known in the community to be critical gives you a good review, this might be given quite some weight. Of course this is risky ...

If you think you project needs a preceding feasibility study, apply for this separately. It might be funded more quickly. Ask your EPSRC Portfolio Manager.

The applicant's reaction to the reviews is the most important part of the process: it will result in the shortest document (2 pages) and will be read by all panel members who will rank your proposal before the final decision is made. It's a good idea to answer one referee's concerns with the praise by another if it is available and detailed enough. However, don't forget to add your own view.

If your proposal has been rejected, you can phone up the Portfolio Managers and ask for reasons politely. They usually make notes during a panel session for this purpose. There are no resubmissions possible according to new EPSRC rules, see below.

Changes to the peer review process

The refereeing forms have changed in order to minimise the discrepancies between verbal comments and tick boxes.

Resubmissions of the same proposal are not allowed unless explicitly invited by the EPSRC. The latter may happen upon recommendation of a panel when the research quality of a proposal is considered great, but it is clear that the budget is not sufficient. Without an invitation, you will have to re-cast your idea. It is reasonable anyway to assume that the idea and its context will have changed during the time passed from your initial submission to the next possible submission.

In order to reduce EPSRC's burden coming from unsuccessful researchers, the number of different applications allowed per PI/CoI within one year is restricted by rather complex rules. Applicants will get warnings before they reach their "budget".