Academic Funding
Fresh today: my story of management woe.

Let me pre-empt the objections. I know that it looks like I'm complaining about not getting a year's paid leave here. However, research leave is important for a number of reasons. First, research is good for universities: they get funded according to the amount and quality of research that gets done. Hence it's important that staff get the chance to do research, and match-funded research leave means that their - our - home institutions don't have to shell out for it. Second, research is important for the sake of career development. Research is the main criterion for promotion, largely due to the fact that it brings in money. Third, research is what makes the difference between a university and a sixth-form college. A lecturer who doesn't do research is simply a teacher; and while teaching is admirable, if we wanted simply to teach, that's what we'd be doing. Fourth, research leave is time away from admin - it offers a precious, precious opportunity not to have to work every evening and every weekend to keep up.

Right. So.

We're entitled to one semester of every seven off for research, and we're encouraged to apply to relevant funding bodies to extend that leave to a whole academic year. I've been granted a sabbatical from August '10 to February '11, and had applied for funding to take me through to August '11. The plan was to write a book and at least a few papers in that time. I've secured a contract for the book. (NB - that won't generate money for me: it's going to be published on a creative commons licence, so it'll be available to download for free. I'm not going to be making a profit out of public money.)

The funding application went in shortly after Christmas. I've just received an email telling me that the funding body in question has been unable to process the applications they received from this call, and will endeavour to let me know whether I've been successful in spring 2011. At the earliest. Eight months after my study leave starts, and two months after its enforced end.

Without the funding, I'll have to go back to normal duties in February. While the book ought to be writable in that time, it'll be a push - especially as I'd also have to prepare teaching materials for semester 2 - and I'd have to renegotiate the contract with Bloomsbury.

There's a number of ways this could go. Assuming that the book gets finished, I face the possibility of coming back off research leave, then being told after a few weeks that I've been awarded money for the project that I'd've just bust a gut to complete without said money. I'd then have either to come up with a similar-enough project to justify taking the cash (and to convince the funders that this wouldn't need a whole new application), or just sacking it. If I take the money, then it looks like I'll be off for a semester, then back for one or two, then off for one, then back again. In short, I'd be like a stroboscope.

If I decide to sack it, then I've effectively sacrificed funding. That's never going to be good for my CV.

Or I could try to defer the sabbatical I've got, renegotiate the book contract, and push back all my career development plans, in the hope that next Easter the funder - the very same one that's pissed up all my plans because they've moved offices and changed their application system, but can't handle that change - decides to smile on me, noting that there's no guarantee of this at all.

Length? Thirteen months, getting shorter.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 15 Jun 2010, 14:31, 8 replies)

I don't know
what it's like in your field right now - bioethics isn't it? - but to hang about on a chance of funding you may very well not get...well, I would be reluctant to say the least, given the sparsity of awards right now. I know for a fact everyone in our research institute with grants finishing soon are pissing themselves because every grant application that's gone in has been rejected. If your funding body can say you have an excellent chance of getting it after your original leave finishes, then see if you can push everything back. If it's less than 50/50, bust a gut in the time you've got. It's annoying, but hey.

Oh, and received* by the way
(berk, Tue 15 Jun 2010, 15:18, closed)

I think sab funding isn't as hard as responsive mode right now
but yeah, I know the feeling. But the money's there, just not in traditional research council blue sky research proposals any more.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Tue 15 Jun 2010, 15:22, closed)

Hmmmm.
I'm going to try to defer my "standard" sabbatical to S2. That way, I can start work on the book during S1 on an evenings-and-weekends-and-spare-afternoons basis - and my teaching load for S1 is always much lighter anyway. That way, if funding comes for a second semester - S1 of the 2011-12 academic year, it's a bonus.

I just need to persuade my HoD and publisher of the merits of this plan now.

As was pointed out by one of my colleagues to whom I was bellyaching - the lack of funding is likely to be a fact of life for everyone for the next few years. It's time to get devious about it.

But thank god I'm at a Russell group place: they at least seem to have some kind of safety cushion, even if it's paltry. I'd hate to be trying to maintain research output in a post-92 at the moment...

Arse!
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 15 Jun 2010, 17:42, closed)

That sucks
Acedemics are really having a hard time of it at the moment. Least you still have a job I guess, even if everything's being fucked around. I'd go with what berk said, either push it back or bust a gut - I wouldn't hang on for the funding.
(Petite chien is going to do science to it, Tue 15 Jun 2010, 15:56, closed)

Aye -
Like I said: it could be worse. I think that the Russell group at least has the less-bad end of a fairly shitty stick.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 15 Jun 2010, 17:43, closed)

Is it necessary to repeat 'simply' every time you mention teachers, or the process of teaching'?
It seems a little patronising.

Research - which often depends largely upon postgrad peons, in any event - ain't always that special. See improbable.com/ig/winners/ for some rather amusing bathos.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Tue 15 Jun 2010, 21:34, closed)

Not patronising in the least.
I've done my stint as a teacher, as has my dad. There's a huge difference between teaching a topic and involving your own research in that teaching, and teaching simpliciter. They're different things. Some'd rather be doing one, others'd rather be doing the other.

I don't have postgrads to do research for me; nor would I want them - your picture is one I recognise from the natural sciences, but wouldn't fit the humanities easily. I've done some collaborative work in my time, but I prefer it to be 100% mine. Much easier.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 9:23, closed)

right
I agree with all points above, but I find it a little hard to sympathise when science-types complain about their research problems. Despite having a first-class degree and a Masters from Oxbridge, I've just been turned down for doctoral funding for the third year in a row. Oh, and my friend who scored a 2:2 from Strathclyde? Fully-funded PhD research position, no questions asked, cos she's a biologist. It's pretty damn depressing.

Sorry. It might sound bitters (cos it is - five years of slogging it out cos I'm so desperate to be a teaching academic and I'm once again looking for cafe jobs) but perhaps it might make you feel better by putting your woes into perspective a little...
(jennymnemonic, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 17:32, closed)

Oi!
I'm a humanities type.

And I've never received funding. I paid for my own masters and PhD, and then spent three years earning approx £3k before I got my first proper job.

None of this makes any difference to the quality of the management of the funder to which I applied, of course.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 17 Jun 2010, 14:15, closed)