Research funding: the secret to success
Applying for research funding is a competitive process so it’s essential to give your bid the best possible chance of success. But where do you start?
In 2018-19, Health and Care Research Wales awarded 17 grants, worth a combined total of more than £3 million.
Marc Boggett, Senior Grants Team Manager, shares his advice on how to submit a great application plus he takes us behind the scenes of the grants process where some key changes are taking place.
What we offer
“Every autumn we open competitive, peer reviewed funding calls for a range of grant schemes including Fellowships, Research for Patient and Public Benefit (RfPPB), and Health or Social Care Research Grants.
“We also run the annual NHS Research Time Awards (formerly known as Clinical Research Time Awards) and Health PhD Studentships too, which we launch every other year during January. We usually get about 40 or 50 applications to this.
“We also provide funding to enable researchers in Wales to apply to a range of UK-level schemes run by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), including a fellowship scheme which can provide significant funding and is a very prestigious award.
Getting your application right
“We always say you need to thoroughly read the guidance. It’s always worth getting advice from researchers we already fund – what did they find to be successful in their application, what feedback did they have?
“There is value in getting the input of the wider Health and Care Research Wales infrastructure too. If you’ve got anything that involves a trial or large research numbers then you should get the local trials unit involved, or other aspects of the infrastructure that we fund. For example if there is a health economics aspect to your proposals, the Welsh Health Economics Support Service is an obvious port of call.
“Our current schemes no longer have themed calls. Instead we encourage applications to focus on priority areas, so when you apply at the first stage make sure you have read and explicitly reference ‘A Healthier Wales’ and make it clear how your research is relevant to a particular policy area or priority area of the Welsh Government as well. That will aid you in getting through the initial prioritisation stage.
“Another key thing is public and patient involvement in research. We expect that projects have public involvement from the very beginning of the development of the research question right through to dissemination.
“And finally, look at any previous feedback you or colleagues have had on applications and take that into account, because we always try to provide constructive feedback.
Improving the process
“We’ve been reviewing all the grant schemes over the summer with the Wessex Institute, who administer the online application system, peer review process and manage panels on our behalf for some of our larger schemes.
“Previously we had a one stage application process for all our schemes but now there are two stages for the Research Funding Schemes and RfPPB.
“We felt we could do with refreshing some of the eligibility criteria and priority areas, as well as making it easier to apply in the first instance.
“The first stage is a summary application, where the applicant must make a case for prioritisation. So hopefully that might be better for applicants who previously had to send a full application, which could be, say, 100 pages, and then it gets knocked out at the first stage.
“We’re also particularly keen to increase capacity and capability in social care research. Historically social care research is less developed capacity-wise compared to health research. So with the social care grants, we’ve loosened the eligibility criteria.
“Previously we said that you could only apply if you had a PhD but no more than 60 months (5 years) of post-doctoral research experience, whereas now we’ve removed this ‘early stage career researcher’ limitation. So you might be a much more experienced post-doctoral applicant or a well-established independent researcher and you can still apply, whereas before there was a cut-off point. Hopefully this means more social care researchers will apply this time.
Behind the scenes
“There are various stages to the application process. We’ve mentioned the prioritisation stage, which we’ve tweaked slightly for some of our schemes, and there’ll be a much wider pool of officials, practitioners in NHS Wales or local authorities, social care, and public members, which is important as well, who will individually review applications. They’ll score the applications according to how important they think the research question is to patients, public and the NHS in Wales.
“After that, a prioritisation oversight committee will see all the scores and they’ll rank the applications according to policy importance. They’ll invite those who’ve got through that first triage to submit a full stage two application, which includes things like methodology and costs.
“At the next stage it’s the science that’s reviewed and those applications will be sent out to peer reviewers across the UK. As I mentioned, we work closely with the Wessex Institute to deliver some of our grant schemes. They have a massive database and substantial experience of obtaining peer reviews. That’s something that previously has been very difficult for us to do because you have to contact many academics across the UK in a range of subject areas to review applications and provide scientific comments for the applicants to consider. So, the Wessex Institute manage that process and they send the peer reviews to us and we then manage the scientific boards. It’s like a handover at that point.
“The scientific boards will look at the peer review scores and comments. The board members are usually senior academics along with public members who will then undertake a final assessment. They’ll make recommendations to Health and Care Research Wales, along with points of feedback or any changes that are needed for the successful ones.
“We write to the applicants once everything’s signed off and we provide applicants with feedback. Then we produce grant offer letters for the successful applicants and we manage those researchers and their projects as well.
Next time it could be you
“Our aim is not to catch people out with applications, it’s to support capacity building by developing talented individuals as well as projects and their teams. So we have high-quality schemes and fund high-quality individuals who can become lead researchers, or who are lead investigators, but also projects that have great value to members of the public and patients, and to policy and practice as well.
“So it’s trying to balance that – not only increasing capacity and capability in Wales but also making sure the research being delivered is scientifically robust and methodologically sound, and reflects important priorities for people in Wales.
“The research funding world is quite competitive. There are lots of great researchers and potential research projects but there’s obviously only so much we can fund, so I would encourage any researchers who were not successful in one call to not be too disheartened and to take the feedback on board.”
First published: @ResearchWales Issue 7, November 2019