Another grant rejected

[cyrkus]

Hi all, just got rejected for another funding bid. Four out of four this year. We are under growing pressure to secure money and it’s just not happening for me. I know with HE how it is this is not the worst thing but i am so dejected. All the time spent with so little gained. Any thoughts?

Oh, I'm sorry - I know how much work it is. I've been lucky to have had a strong of grants, but I'd say that I've had as many rejected as awarded. Is the feedback any use in terms of re-application - or reworking the central idea?

Or can you repurpose the idea into a journal article?

The other thing is most UKRI research council success rates are around 10-15% so it is more usual to be rejected than awarded. Cold comfort, I know.

Ah, I'm sorry, the frequent rejection inherent in academia is one of the suckiest parts of the job! Any why I now work in uni prof services rather than in research!

You're allowed to be upset and frustrated about this - but try and limit wallowing to a day or two before pulling your socks up and thinking about next steps. Try to remember that pretty much the maximum success rate for funders is 25%, and most are much lower, at 5-15% - so it isn't a 'failure' on your part that four out of four bids have been unsuccessful, it's just part of a numbers game weighted against you.

All my sympathy if that's what you're looking for - if you want advice as well though, a whole bunch of questions below:

Can you repurpose this grant for another funder?

Have you been submitting the same research idea to all four attempts or different projects?

Have you been getting feedback from the funder? If UKRI, what scores have you been getting?

Are these big or small applications? What career stage are you, and do you have a track record of securing funding?

What is your publication track record like?

Are you getting your grants peer reviewed before submission?

Thanks for responding. These are different bids - scores ok but not sufficiently competitive. I’m reasonably senior with a fairly strong publication record, and the bids have been different sizes. It just seems impossible! I can’t seem to find the thing funders want to fund! @Wadsworthy - i know there isn’t a trick or technique but … how do you think you secured those grants? Any tips? I am in social sciences.

In terms of pitching your research, it's not just about coming up with a great research idea - it sounds obvious, but it needs to be a great idea that the funder wants to fund.

Take a look at the funder strategy and priorities, and tweak your research plans so its outcomes and impact match what they want to fund. Mirror their language throughout your proposal - make it really easy for the reviewer and panel to see how your research will help the funder achieve their aims.

ESRC strategy and priorities – UKRI
Strategic Review | About | Nuffield Foundation
The British Academy Strategic Plan 2023-2027 | The British Academy
What we do | The Leverhulme Trust
<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.com/sorry/index?continue=fundermental.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-inside-track-on-applying-to.html&q=EhAqBdAcAcwUBNBSAAAAAAADGKqj5tMGIi2xvuuPtld_htAb-FEYiT4aHNxXBQZraacjKJuilRIla6J4Svttun1oiNd7QogyAnJSWgFD" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">This site has been archived: The Inside Track on Applying to Leverhulme

i know there isn’t a trick or technique but … how do you think you secured those grants? Any tips? I am in social sciences.

I'm in humanities, broadly historical studies - I'm an archival scholar basically - I like finding out new stuff. I do projects where I've identified an obvious gap in the scholarship on an important topic, and I have the expertise to address that gap. I do big projects, with a big archival sweep. I think these are legible to non-specialists, and they offer really new knowledge, rather than a nuancing of extant research fields. So it's a combination of
big sweep
legibility
able to show why filling the gap is important (and timely)

To take a topic I don't work on: I don't do yet another reading of the causes of WWI. I find an overlooked war that came before it, and find a new cache of records or a new group of actors/agents. And write about that. So it's often frontier stuff.

I don’t agree with this. I work for one of these funders and the Strat plan has nothing to do with the award criteria, and though obviously the wouldn’t work on opposition to one another.

At the end of the day we usually find we could have funded at least 2 times as many proposals based on excellence, than on funding available. There’s just not enough money to fund all the great research in the system.