The aim of peer review for research grants and academic hiring boards is to provide expert independent judgement on the quality of research proposals and candidates. Based on findings from a recent survey, Liv Langfeldt, Dag W. Aksnes and Ingvild Reyme…
Category: research grants
Time, Finances, Confidence, Knowledge – Research communicators should be attentive to the resource inequalities inherent to academia
Funding for research communication is a growing feature of grant applications and whilst digital scholarship may have started as an individual undertaking, it is now a mainstream and, in some instances, commercial activity. Commenting on how research c…
Short notice research funding calls are bad for researchers and research
Adam Golberg argues that short notice funding calls are an inherently poor mechanism for producing good research projects and that by reducing the time necessary for preparation, such calls introduce inequity into the selection process and potentially damage the reputation of research funders. I’ve worked in Research Development in various roles for about fifteen years, … Continued
Blind Luck – Could lotteries be a more efficient mechanism for allocating research funds than peer review?
Peer review is integral to the award of funds for academic research. However, as an increasingly large number of researchers attempt to secure limited funding, it is clear that much funding is awarded based on marginal assessments of the quality of different proposals. In this post, Lambros Roumbanis argues that randomly awarding research funding via lotteries presents a more rational, […]
It’s not the winning but the taking part that counts: how the process of applying for competitive grants is of benefit to researchers
“The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part.” So goes the famous saying by Pierre de Coubertin, the father of modern Olympic Games. But does the same apply for competitive research grants? Charles Ayoubi, Michele Pezzoni and Fabiana Visentin report on their study which finds that simply taking part in an application process has […]
Your grant application is about to die: Research teams that recognise gender dimension offer a competitive advantage.
Funding requirements confirm there is a competitive advantage for research engaged in the active promotion of gender perspectives. Strategic decision-making in universities should also recognise the value a sex and gender dimension adds, both for funding and the quality of research. Curt Rice stresses how social sciences and humanities can help deliver these perspectives more deliberately and explicitly into research. Last year, the world lost […]