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Funding advice for first timers
Know what you’re in for so you can calibrate expectations
Entering the ‘funding game’ can be daunting at first but it will soon become par for the course.
Key takeaways
- Seeking funding takes a lot of time; be prepared that you’ll lose more often than you win.
- Aligning your funding, career, and research plans is essential.
- Making strategic decisions about funding minimises the ‘opportunity cost’ of writing an application rather than spending time on other aspects of your research.
Read time: 3 min
The ups and downs of trying to win funding
Be prepared to spend a lot of your time
Identifying funding opportunities, and then writing and submitting applications, can be hugely time consuming. Some senior academics estimate that they spend one-quarter to one-third of their working life doing just this. Add to this the fact that most funding schemes are incredibly competitive, with very low success rates, and you may wonder if it’s worth the effort!
Successes are worth the hard work
But when you do finally win that grant or fellowship, have no doubt: the champagne will flow and the long days and late nights will definitely feel worthwhile. Nevertheless, success can be a long time coming, and you will lose far more often than you will win – this is in fact the case even for the most ‘successful’ researchers. So, learn to play the ‘long game’; definitely do not take failures personally, but learn from them; and try to develop resilience – it’s something of a mantra in this space.
Funding plans are a must
If you’re serious about research, then your career goals will include securing research funding. This is true for both the STEM and HASS disciplines. Even in less funding-intensive fields, securing a fellowship is an important indicator of the quality of your work and is recognition of your achievements.
Just as you need a strategy for your career and your research, you’ll also need a strategy for funding due to the complexity of the funding landscape, the competitiveness of schemes, and the time and effort required to submit applications.
Consider your plans holistically
Your funding, research plans, and career plans should all align. For example, your funding strategy should enable your research aspirations, your career plans will likely involve applying for funding, and your research plans should take you in your desired career direction.
Every decision has an ‘opportunity cost’
The guidance and resources available over the next pages are intended not only to help you identify and apply for funding, but to do so strategically and efficiently. As well as helping you to succeed, we want to help you minimise the ‘opportunity cost’ of this whole process – that is, time lost that you could have spent doing other things. A classic conundrum, especially for early-career researchers, is whether to apply for funding now or build your track record so as to be more competitive in the future (e.g. by writing another journal article). Which is the better use of your valuable time? Here, we try to help you make strategic choices.