Scaling up funding

• Consider the scale of the research challenge and whether it requires program funding.
• Cohesive research themes or projects are vital for application success.
• A history of collaboration by core team members boosts feasibility. 
• Assess your leadership abilities; managing teams, partnerships, budgets, and program risks requires skills and diplomacy – it can be a learning curve.
• Timing, preparation, and career stage matter; start planning years ahead. 

Read time: 4 min

In addition to your own team, you’ll need collaborators and their teams, as well as equipment, infrastructure, and resources. In many program and centre funding schemes, it’s expected that you will leverage other funding too – from grants, industry partners, government investment, possibly from venture capitalists, and of course from the investigators’ research institutions. It is always advantageous if at least some of those involved – often a core group – have a history of successfully collaborating together. This will strengthen the case for feasibility.

As well as time and energy, you’ll need leadership abilities and management skills. You’ll be leading a team of investigators who may be research leaders in their own right – a kind of ‘first among equals’ scenario. If you’ve worked with them before, you’ll at least know what you’re dealing with. Tact, diplomacy, and the ability to delegate will be paramount. If there are end-user partners, you will also have to engage and negotiate with them. You will bear ultimate responsibility for progress, budget, reporting, risk management, etc… and finally for the program’s or centre’s success or failure. Dealing with all of this can be a steep learning curve.

One thing that should be apparent by now is that timing and preparation are critical. You’ll need to be at the right stage in your career, and you’ll need to have set the wheels in motion several years before.

The best way to learn about leading a large research initiative is to participate in one first – not as the leader or director, but perhaps in a ‘deputy’ or ‘theme leader’ role. Some programs and centres also give EMCRs the opportunity to ‘shadow’ members of the leadership team, precisely so they can learn how it’s done.

If you haven’t been in a position to ‘learn on the job’, here is an overview of leadership capabilities.

Applying for program or centre funding is a project in its own right. You’ll need to assemble the key collaborators, build consensus around what you all plan to achieve, and manage the nitty-gritty of financial, logistical, intellectual property and other legal arrangements. You may also need to reach out to potential industry, government and/or community partners, seeking not only their involvement and other in-kind contributions but also cash.

Writing the funding submission itself will also require all your leadership and management skills, as you corral your collaborators for input, attend to the detail without losing sight of the ‘big picture’, and keep everything on track so that you don’t miss the deadline. 

Delegating tasks is crucial. For example, you may find that you are so busy dealing with collaborators and negotiating with partners, that you have little time yourself for writing. So, can you assign some of this writing work to another investigator or to a capable postdoc?

These are some of the key leadership capabilities you will need in order just to apply for large-scale funding. 

Email the Pipeline and Pre-Award team in the Research Portfolio for strategic advice on planning for a centre or large research program application.