Academics Chat Thread Mark II

[SignsofSpring]

As the one who didn't look and then managed to close the last thread, I'm going to be the one to start this one! All thoughts, rants, ideas on being an academic especially in Covid-19 times are here...

[SignsofSpring]

I have reported myself for my rogue apostrophe as well...hope mumsnet change it. So tired!

[worstofbothworlds]

Well, you could just chat to yourself I suppose? Then it would be an Academic's thread.

Anyway re funding, the network grant was the only one I got. A whopping £10k for travel/workshops (which in STEM is like giving you £2.50).

[murmuration]

Grant disappointment. It sucks. I think I'm still smarting from one years ago - I really thought I had a chance, and I didn't even get to the filtered stage. Although I'm in STEM, and for the most part we don't get teaching buy-out from grants anyway! Although sometimes you can use a grant as part of a sabbatical application (our sabbaticals are now by application, and you can only get them if you've got funding for the research you say you want to do - it's a constant "those who have get more" - how are those of us without funding and with heavy teaching loads meant to bring in the money to then ask for a sabbatical? While those with grants already can use that data to leverage more funding...).

I took advice and started going with larger groups, and was actually sucessful - to the tune of over £10M combined across three projects.Then when I went for promotion got told my funding wasn't good enough because it was all collaborative. Grr!! so now I'm supervising a variety of people and coordinating with some 30-some other academics across the 3 projects, which is no small effort, and still not getting any credit for having grants. Our workload came out recently and once again most of my funding was left off, so I was on the bottom of the research pile. Feels like I can't win.

[SignsofSpring]

murmuration so frustrating! We also have the thing where your exact contribution to large grants is calculated, it doesn't really matter what the total is, so in some ways on a totally selfish level it's better to put in a good 50% of your time on a smaller grant than play along with a huge grant in some type of consultancy/supervisory capacity. The opposite of what the uni keeps saying of course.

worst again, so annoying esp as the hassle factor is hard with network stuff, having said that, something is better than nothing in grants, I've had a lull for a while and the pressure to produce is getting quite great.

[KeflavikAirport]

So ridiculous. I mean I've had a bloody good career so far, top flight uni, loads of output, but my research (humanities) costs tuppence ha'penny to put together so I've never needed to apply for more funding than the cost of a conference flight sort of thing. Now looking into it for this new job and fucksake the sheer amount of acronyms is mind numbing. It seems to be you can get 2000 euros for a flight 'n' hotel at the local level or several million euros from Horizon2020 and nothing in between. Ugh.

[catlady3]

@KeflavikAirport

So ridiculous. I mean I've had a bloody good career so far, top flight uni, loads of output, but my research (humanities) costs tuppence ha'penny to put together so I've never needed to apply for more funding than the cost of a conference flight sort of thing. Now looking into it for this new job and fucksake the sheer amount of acronyms is mind numbing. It seems to be you can get 2000 euros for a flight 'n' hotel at the local level or several million euros from Horizon2020 and nothing in between. Ugh.

Arts & Humanities Council standard grant is 50k-1mil, but I guess there might be a reason why that isn't a good fit for you? If you want to say a bit more about why you can't find anything, I look at a lot of funding opportunities, maybe I've come across something? I'm also quite good at twisting things to make them fit (that's what he said).

[KeflavikAirport]

I'm not in the UK.

[KeflavikAirport]

But thanks for the offer! sorry that was a bit abrupt.

[seeingdots]

Hi all, do you mind if I join in? I didn't realise there was an academics chat thread.

I have a touch of grant disappointment just now before even having had the knock back. I'm on reduced hours just now during lockdown and spent weeks sinking significant amounts of my time into an EU bid at the expense of everything else. Turns out there was around 200 submissions of which probably 2 will be funded. Ours is definitely not perfect so chances are pretty much non-existent. This is the game though I suppose.

[jabbathebutt]

St Andrews online teaching until September.
Glasgow staff are being told the same but nothing public yet.

[Downriver]

I suspect it will be the case for most places, no? Anywhere not doing it for Hums/Soc sci. What are St A doing about lab work and practical subjects?

[jabbathebutt]

I don't work there so can't say.

I am finding Moodle a right PITA this week. I've always struggled to get my head around it. Also trying to figure out Zoom transcribing.

Not a good week techy wise, although in my defense I am new to the HE sector!

[historyrocks]

Also in Scotland and don’t expect to return to any on campus teaching this year. We’re prepared for some online teaching to continue in 2021/22

Not sure if anyone saw the announcement that dentistry students will have to repeat the year? Not sure if it’s just Scotland or nationwide

[jabbathebutt]

which one are you @historyrocks I'm at Glasgow

apparently UWS staff are expected back 50/50 soon...although that could well change depending on the SG announcement

[QueenoftheAir]

sinking significant amounts of my time into an EU bid at the expense of everything else. Turns out there was around 200 submissions of which probably 2 will be funded

I had the news earlier this week that a Marie Curie (EU/ERC) postdoc I sponsored got the grant. Fantastic - but take heart, this was the second application, and the applicant really attended to the feedback from the first.

I submitted a grant to the ERC last August (thinking it might be the last opportunity to do so). It was the second time around for that one as well. Both versions took a summer each to write (in between conference papers & finishing up, re-writing/revising a couple of publications).

It's through the first stage of assessment so I'm crossing my fingers I'll be 2nd time lucky again ... actually, I'm trying not to hope too much, and expecting it to be highly rated but not in the money.

Then it gets recycled for a UKRI bid.

And the beat goes on, la de da de dah.

[Marasme]

glad i found the thread - i could not work out why i could not reply :/

grant rejections - i don't even feel the pain anymore. I sit on enough panel to know it s a total lottery. Like the turds my main panel chose to fund thanks to an evangelical presenter, and a weak chair.

i did a career highlight talk recently and had a slide on rejection: 14 in 2yrs, for 2 funded. Some small, some big, some big collab, and 30% going to stage 2 or 3/ interview, including ERC.

[SignsofSpring]

Marasme it is such a lottery! and such a waste of so much energy and thinking time as well, kind of you to share though, as it's easy to feel everyone else is acing it and you are not.

[murmuration]

And even if there aren't oddities like Marasme describes, it's still a lottery - I've sat on panels where I know only the top 15-20% are going to get funding, but basically everything in the top half is really good research. And some in the bottom half - so much good stuff is rejected now, that there are very few bad grants as everyone just keeps improving upon their rejected submissions!

[impostersyndrome]

Doesn’t this “lottery” situation of the low chances of success signal a need for a rethink? I know there are no easy alternatives, but this, along with REF, is just an appalling waste of time where we could actually be doing the damned research.

[QueenoftheAir]

You'd think so wouldn't you @impostersyndrome ?

In places of rational thought, you'd think people might work that out ...

[worstofbothworlds]

Send me strength.
I got my UG research student allocation for the upcoming academic year; it's one more than I had this year, which is itself one more than I actually supervised (one asked to move supervisor, after abandoning her group for a couple of months - and we are being asked to take on more group work).
I did not give my current cohort everything they needed and they are all doing really badly (our cohorts overlap so one year is finishing as another starts).
I have to say to my HoD that I cannot supervise this many. We had a recent meeting in which we were encouraged to say if things are too much for us. I have NEVER managed to say that things were too much for me and have anything change except where I then went off sick with stress so didn't have to do the impossible task.

[SignsofSpring]

worstofbothworlds I really think you should say something to your HoD. Arrange a Zoom catch up, send an email in advance as well. I don't know if it's just at our institution, but we seem to be having a bit more of attention on wellbeing and yes, some of it is superficial, but equally if there are staff that are genuinely overloaded/struggling, accommodations can be made. I would definitely shout now as well otherwise you are going to be worried about this til next Sept.

[worstofbothworlds]

I did send something - to the research coordinator who allocates the students, CCing my HoD who sets the numbers per academic. I pointed out that we were told to speak up if things get too much and I hoped that offer was genuine.

I feel so badly for my students this year - it's been horrendous for them. This week I have worked 3 days and of that time I'm spending 11 hours in Teams/Skype/Zoom meetings.

[DrGilbertson]

Re: grants - I read a paper somewhere, informally cite it frequently but can't actually find the reference - that the bigges predictor of successful grant funding is ... making more applications. Ha.

[Marasme]

i read that too @DrGilbertson

the waste of time is appalling. I applied for a massive collaborative one last year which wiped me out. It killed my year, i have nothing to show for it, and so much of it was faffing around the format requirements