Funding for our research refused

[inappropriatelyemployed]

So annoyed After months of preparation and fine tuning, after short listing and answering very detailed questions about methodology, our application for funding for a unique research project on promoting children's rights in the SEN process has been refused.

Looking at the feedback, there was certainly a feeling of it not being a good time because poor LAs are in 'disarray' with the CFB. I translate that into - we are going to get ourselves into a political situation if we fund this.

So pissed off, I have dedicated lots of time to this and got together a top panel of completely fab people involved in the education world as well as the unreserved backing of a children's charity.

Does anyone ever want to hear our kids's voices?

Do your top people know of other funding sources?

Ask RH if he knows of anything as he's interested in the topic iirc. and has mentioned to me that it is the kind of work that needs to be done.

What about AAA. Some of them are incredibly well networked. If you done all that work you have something very real to 'sell'.

Btw, isn't the time when LAs are in disarray and directionless a perfect time to do research?

Thanks - yes, we do need to look at other sources of funding and those in the University world would be best placed to advise probably.

www.wellcome.ac.uk/

I can't say I know much about how research works but have you spoken to these guys?

Well we did respond by saying most LAs seem to be doing bollocks all actually and there is little evidence practice has changed because of the pathfinders.

It is very annoying because we got feedback from peer reviewers and were asked to address the questions they raised which we did rather brilliantly (IMHO) But our answers seem to have gone to the research trustees without going back to the peer reviewers and God knows if any of the hi-falutin research trustees know anything about SEN.

Some of the peer review comments were dodgy - about how we would stop the project be about middle class parents complaining

Haven't been to Wellcome. Will look at that. Need someone prepared to get involved when legislation is passing through Parliament!

That doesn't make any sense. What have the complaints of middle class parents got to do with anything?

And anyway, presumably you had to justify the research as it's use for society and initiating change is surely a part of that right?

How did Jamie Oliver stop middle class parents complaining about crap school food?

Can you sell it back to them as 'cure for autism'. Universities seem to like that at the moment. Then you can say that 'some' children have a reduction in symptoms when they are given efficient and effective access to services and when the parents aren't stitched up to such an extent they spend their lives defending themselves rather than helping their children...

Sorry. Bit of a rant. Pretty angry on your behalf.

Westminster university?

Great pro bono unit and some social sciences type stuff, might be a cross departmental project.

The reviewers are anonymous but presumably working in the field or academics. One review was awesome and the others supportive but some of the questioning betrayed the standpoint. But ALL said the research was timely.

The specific would identify the whole thing too much but some of the comment made me go 'ah, that is the problem, they don't want a report from the middle of a decaying system at a time of political flux'. Like they were looking for reasons not to back as the good very clearly outweighed by a very large amount any slight methodological adjustments needed on the way.

It's the nature of the decision-makers more than anything else. I shall PM you Star with who it is.

Cloak thanks for the tip - I'll follow that up too. I shan't give up. I have a panel of about 10 leading figures backing this and saying it needs to be done.

You could contact some of the sensible people that wrote the reports referred to in the Parliamentary evidence. They might be interested and have contacts. They might have persuasive powers.

Thanks. It is very frustrating as the project is linked to a children's charity which has an excellent reputation for research and we have many big names attached.

Spent five years writing grants and failing most of the time to get funding. It is soul destroying as they are usually about ten times as many applicants as there is money available so often you can get a good rating for your grant and it still doesn't get funded. Do keep persevering.

Grant funders love collaborative projects - you sound as if you have lots of people already on board but try and get evidence of active involvement. Sometimes the smaller charities receive less applications than big organisations like Wellcome so can be a better bet. If you are hoping to demonstrate that more effective services save the government/NHS money then they might be interested in funding. You can sometimes get money more easily locally than for a huge national project. Just floating ideas as I have no idea of the scope of your research. Are you a 'new' researcher - lots of the funders have special categories for that that is worth looking into. I had some success with the Royal Society but no idea if they fund the sort of project you are looking at. Would Action for Children, Spurgeons or any charity that supports children with disabilities be a source of funding and/support?

Thank you guys - very helpful. OneinEight - could I PM you at some point about this?

OneinEight - have you ever had an application where they have given you feedback from referees but the referees have got things wrong - in this case, they have misunderstood the law.

If the referee was 'made' to understand would they change their mind and support if?

No point flogging a dead horse though in subsequent applications if to are require to disclose reference or want to you can discredit referee's comments.

It is very odd. They got some referees to comment. Some raised questions. We answered them.

It doesn't appear our answers were then put to referees so Trustees had initial referee responses and our answers which they had to try put together themselves without any skills in this area.

We then got sight of the referee's papers on refusal of grant and it is clear that one of the three, at least, has made comments which are just plain wrong.

I don't mind being beaten in a fair fight.

Sorry. I meant the trustee. Is his refusal based on purely ignorance or predjudice?

Sorry. Assuming it is a He.

Tis a panel

It doesn't appear our answers were then put to referees

Can you try the time-honoured, "Oops, you've made a clerical error, could you fix it & try again, please" approach?

It's the modern variant of the ancient, treason-avoiding approach for dealing with serious executive errors: "Always blame the advisors, not the King"

poor LAs are in 'disarray' with the CFB

The perfect time really. Putting the child's rights at the centre of their processes will get them out of disarray faster than anything else

My experience is scientific grants so may be a bit different. In my experience I rarely got to see the referees comments until after the decision to not fund by the panel. I'm not sure I got one that was factually incorrect although disagreed in interpretation on several. Depends how the money is allocated as to whether it is worth pointing out the error - for most of the ones I applied for there was a panel considering everybody's applications, they rejected the ones the reviewers said were not worthy of being funded (not many) and then prioritized the rest on the reviewers comments, how closely they met the organizations aims and the achievability of the project in the timescale of the funding requested. The top how many were then given the funding. Basically, what I am saying is the money for this round of applications has probably gone to someone else already. Also, do you think this was the only reason why the grant was not funded or were there other negative comments in the reviews?