This blog is by Andrew Fairweather-Tall, Director of Research and Innovation, University of London
Perspectives on Research is a series of blog posts commissioned as part of the Early Career Research Fellowships in Cultural and Heritage Institutions programme, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and coordinated by the V&A.
One of the first applications I ever dealt with when I first started out in research support, was for a research centre over five years involving multiple researcher roles, buyouts and activities. It was quite an introduction to the concept of supporting or facilitating research that has fascinated me ever since: how to maximise the intellectual gain and its impact and minimise the churn of anything that might inhibit or prevent the applicants and their teams from answering the research questions they outlined. Well, the award was won – over £1.1M which (some 20 years ago) was a huge deal, not just to those who wrote the application, but to the department and, indeed, to me as I started my career in research management. However, the learning did not stop there. We soon realised that our idealised research programme had not anticipated everything from recruitment timelines, to budget phasing, to internal disagreements on its intellectual direction, to finding space, creating a programme identity and so on. It is fair to state, in retrospect, we (I) had focused on getting the application submitted, not on what would really need to happen if it were awarded. Frankly it taught me that there are many challenges created by winning an award, although of course these are the troubles every research support professional prefers to have.
So what relevance does a project from earlier ‘Wild West’ days of research support in a university have to early-career researchers in an era of Independent Research Organisations (IROs), blended careers, a mature – if scarce – funding environment?
First, if you are currently a fellow funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), what would help develop your fellowship project further: a personal fellowship, collaborative network, new/original question or hypothesis based research project? I have always advised academics to think at least five years ahead when considering funding. This may sound like a long time, but funding is getting harder to obtain so success rates are low, the best grant applications are those that have been given careful thought, tested extensively with trusted colleagues, and occasionally life gets in the way of positive intentions (that’s normally a good thing). And while you are thinking about future plans, where else might help you extend your personal and profession networks? The School of Advanced Study, a national centre for the promotion and facilitation of research in the humanities, offers support and training opportunities for humanities and GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, museums) researchers at all career stages: Support For Researchers | School of Advanced Study (sas.ac.uk), subject associations relevant to your discipline and the national Learned Societies, for example the British Academy, are also good places to investigate.
Secondly, if you already hold a funded fellowship, you can evidently already write a fundable grant application. What did the reviewers like about your project and the way you had put it together? Consider how and whether you want to move beyond individual funding to a bigger, longer, larger, more ambitious and collaborative project. What is your current fellowship already showing you that still needs to be done? Sometimes – not always though, so careful – writing an application for a small grant takes nearly as much time as extending the ideas and surrounding project into something truly ambitious and career-defining. Start plotting the next project now, and think big rather than small. AHRC is already broadening its definition of who is eligible to be an applicant, and challenging the sector to co-produce its research: as GLAM researchers, you already have insights that expand and add to those of researchers in higher education institutions. Perhaps think about applying to its regular calls for new Peer review college members; incidentally, also a good way of understanding what reviewers look for in applications to UKRI schemes.
Thirdly, look for funders beyond the usual suspects, whatever your disciplinary home. For example, the Wellcome Trust funds a wide range of research related to human life, health and well-being, and you may already be familiar with the work of the Wellcome Collection. Your research may also meet social or community goals from funders such as the National Lottery, and many of you may have access to more than one research council if your research is both scientific and collection related. A good place to start is to look at your own institution to see which funders they have had awards from in the past or present. Trusts and Foundations often have specific, narrow, objectives around culture and heritage that you may be able to address. Your institution may also have a subscription to a funding insight service, such as Research Professional. If so, use the keyword search to find other funders, if not, you can still get some way with a careful Google search and reviewing the mission and/or funding criteria on funders’ websites.
Finally, remember that there is extensive advice and support available to which you can reach out. Make the most of it if you are affiliated to a university, or are fortunate enough to have some support in your IRO. If you have neither link, you might want to see if your subject association runs any support sessions, and don’t forget the British Academy has regional Early-Career networks, including one in London: https://thebritishacademyecrn.com/. And listen to the advice from your Research Services office or equivalent: one, rarely recognised, way in which their research advice adds enormous value for you as well as your institution is not just in the applications they nurture to submission, it’s in the words of advice that lead a researcher to the conclusion that a particular funding route that seemed interesting at first sight and on paper, isn’t really suited to their project, or their career stage, or their partners. You will also of course get plenty of advice on how to develop and shape your project, the costs to include, and those who can advise and support you to get ethics or other internal clearances. If you’re lucky, you’ll also have access to an iterative internal review process to support you as you develop the project ideas and structure as well as to develop the other aspects of the project design such as its impact and engagement.
What ever way your funding journey takes you, above all remember that practice, learning from success and failure, alongside respectful listening to advice from professional as well as academic colleagues, is the starting point for enabling you to do what you want to further the ideas you are most passionate about, to work with partners, and, hopefully, to gain new insights and answers to questions that you can then share widely and usefully. Good luck!
Perspectives on Research aims to shine a light on different aspects of research in cultural and heritage organisations, with contributions invited from a range of practitioners with experience of working in or with the sector. Through this series, we aim to develop a set of resources that may be helpful to researchers working in or thinking about working in cultural and heritage organisations beyond the programme itself.
Andrew Fairweather-Tall is a senior Higher Education manager with experience of leading teams across multiple research and partnership portfolios alongside expertise in research funding, governance and strategy, partnership working and consortia development, project management and career development and mentoring. He led Oxford University’s Research Support team for the Humanities Division before joining the School of Advanced Study as Head of Research and Research Partnerships and then Director of Research and Innovation at the University of London. Andrew works with the AHRC, British Academy, and Research England to support the humanities nationally, and within the University of London and its federal member institutions to establish innovative and cross-cutting partnerships.
