Writing Strong Applications

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The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council investing in research
for discovery and innovation the aim of this podcast is to offer advice to new
academics on writing strong applications for funding the initial starting point
is to follow the guidance on the EPSRC website by putting into the search area
preparing a proposal EPSRC portfolio managers Nick Cooper Elaine massing Adam
luck Marnie and Richard Gunn head of peer review are going to go through some
commonly asked questions tips and advice and some of the myths they come across
among new academics regarding writing applications
there's a common misconception that you need a certain number of collaborators
or a certain number of project partners in order to successfully get funding
this just isn't the case everything comes down to is it appropriate for the
project is it something that a reviewer is going to read and wonder why wasn't
this company involved or why is this company involved because they have
nothing to do with the project itself and those are the things to keep in mind
is it appropriate well there are certain calls where you have to have project
partners but for many new investigators that's not something that they would be
dealing with so it was a general rule I think it's helpful to have collaborators
and project partners where they contribute to the project but you
shouldn't feel that there's any preconceived target to reach when it
comes to collaborators or project partners it's often thought that EPSRC
is looking for proposals covering specific topics this isn't the case we
have strategies on our website to say how we want certain research areas to go
but for responsive mode applications the idea is that you can apply to do
research in whichever area interests you our remit covers the whole of
engineering and physical sciences which includes mathematics and we also have
other research councils within UK who we Co fund with so we cover the entire
science and innovation landscape however there are specific calls that are
targeted to particular areas of science so it's really important again to check
the documentation for the cool that you're applying to and just checking
that what you're proposing fits with that scheme if you're not sure there's
always a contact detail in the cool document somewhere and your research
office will be able to help you as well one myth I hear is that EPSRC keeps a
black list of academics who can't apply for further funding that's definitely
not true something that may have caused this myth
is that we do have something called the repeatedly unsuccessful applicants lists
it's a list of people who have been systematically unsuccessful in apply for
grants over a long period of time and what it will do is restrict those people
to one application per year for a 12-month period the point behind this is
to relieve strain on peer review to encourage the applicant to work with
their office and colleagues to improve the
quality of their applications if they want to put further ones in in the
future once you are on that list you will definitely be notified and you're
taken off that list after the twelve months some people think they can
resubmit a project as long as they mildly change the wording of it this
isn't the case we do have a policy that prohibits resubmissions unless it's in a
specific case where the funding panel has asked us to invite a resubmission we
expect you to take the comments from the reviewers on board and not just change
the words around in the proposal but make some substantial changes to the
content based on the feedback you've already been given high-quality
proposals are what rise to the top of the panel list and this is what people
need to be focusing on it's not the case that adding a multi or interdisciplinary
aspect to your proposal will increase or decrease its chances of funding it's
important to it bring in that the right disciplines from the start of the
proposal when you're writing it the fact is that at the review stage we will
ensure that every elements of the proposal is covered by the expert
reviewers and then a panel a disciplinary panel that are best
equipped to deal with that proposal will ultimately make a recommendation for
funding on it take the time to understand all of the various
disciplines that you are involving in your research because there's a good
chance that if you're a mathematician who's involving a chemist for instance
you may get a chemist reviewer who will see it from their perspective and you
need to make sure that you're writing your proposal in a way that will make
sense to a chemist as well as to a mathematician applicants often think
they have to write their grant proposal in isolation without asking for help and
this just isn't the case we really do encourage people to talk to others about
their proposal whether it's colleagues or their research office or us at EPSRC
if you want guidance about the specifics of how to apply it really shouldn't be a
solo process it's not something that's testing your ability to write something
by yourself it's a myth that there are certain words or phrases that will help
your grant get funded we sometimes call this grant speak and you'll see certain
phrases pop up in grants quite regularly you don't need to fill it full of
technical jargon or use the word strategic in
resentence to get your grant funded it is incredibly important when writing a
proposal to make sure the wording is accessible and jargon free and clear to
read it's going to be read by a number of audiences while it's going through
the peer-review process including EPSRC staff by peer reviewers who may be in
your discipline but on the fringes of it it'll be read by panel members who may
not necessarily have the same depth of knowledge of your particular area of
research another aspects of the importance of keeping things jargon free
is that a summary of your proposal will appear on the EPSRC website it therefore
could be read by a range of people who could provide the impact that you want
from your research government and industry and other users and so to make
sure the project has the success that presumably you want from it it's crucial
to make it as clear and jargon free as possible a common mistake that I've seen
people make in research proposals on a fairly regular basis is not to really
emphasize at the outset what the point of the research is so people will very
quickly go into the technical detail of what they're proposing without setting
it in context and explaining why that research is necessary in the first place
how it will advance the field and what the outcome might look like
and without that clear methodology it's very difficult for reviewers to actually
assess the quality of the project some mistakes that people often make when
they're writing their proposals include writing a proposal which isn't in a
novel area or which is of limited novelty and writing a proposal which has
a weak argument for why it is a nationally important project so you need
to write a pathways to impact document for instance but the impact that you're
proposing should be linked to what's going on in the proposal often you find
that the disparate documents all have different ideas of what's going to
happen with the research and making it joined up and making a coherent proposal
is one of the best indicators of success pathway to impact is about identifying
potential beneficiaries of the research and trying to reach out to them this can
include requesting funding for things like public outreach and engagement
someone to do their social media to do workshops work with industry
all of these things can be asked for they just need to make sure that they
are justifying the resources and that's applicable to their project
so on your pathways to impact document make sure that you include the resources
you need to make that impact that you want one of the pieces of advice I give
to new academics is to make sure that they have several other people read
their proposal and to basically be a critical friend so you want that
critical friend to actually look for gaping holes for things that aren't
being answered things that aren't clear to make sure that they use the reviewer
documentation that we do have available online so that it's actually being
almost assessed before it goes out to reviewers and that should help make a
stronger proposal it's really important to follow the guidelines relating to
formatting font text size and things like that because if the font is wrong
it will have to come back to you to be adjusted some of this is because of the
computer system and it's how it's read we also want to make sure things are
fair to everyone this is why we ask for it to be in the same font the same size
same margins and the same number of pages so that people aren't getting you
know an extra paragraph or two on an additional page
that ends this look at advice for new academics on writing strong applications
other podcasts in this series cover areas such as the right to reply and
funding options for new academics the engineering and Physical Sciences
Research Council investing in research for discovery and innovation

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Writing Strong Applications

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