Writing successful proposals:
The NERC standard round
Robin Hogan
Head of Department for Research, Meteorology
29 October 2012
Thanks to Sue Gray
What is a good idea for responsive mode?
“Research councils fund the
cutting edge of the status quo”
Steve Hubbell, originally said of NSF
The excitement-maturity diagram
Excitement
Einstein’s special
theory of relativity
What’s the next
great idea in
this field?
Do more
work first
Crazy
idea
Demonstrable
idea
Published
idea
Established
approach
NERC responsive
mode
Satellite intercalibration and
quality-control to produce a
climate-quality dataset
Can it be done by a
postdoc in 3 years?
NERC national
capability?
Maturity
Preparation
• Try to avoid responsive mode if possible (success rate < 20%)!
• Start work early: don’t underestimate the time it will take!
– Remember the University deadline is 2 weeks before NERC’s
– Ask Linda Tse to set up the Je-S form and do the costings
• Carefully read the guidelines (& call for Directed Programme)
• Read some successful proposals – see RED archive:
– www.reading.ac.uk/internal/res/ -> RED -> preparing applications
• Many other models than 1x unnamed 3-year postdoc
– E.g. 2x 2-year postdocs; add fraction of senior postdoc’s time etc.
– Name experienced postdoc (Marguerite has list); higher spinal point
• Large grants only: add PhD student in addition to postdoc
– Only 20% cost of postdoc, and can do more speculative science
– Can’t be working on mission-critical part, but supports postdoc work
Collaborations
• Find suitable Co-I to strengthen projects with multiple aspects
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Hold a 2-hour workshop to brainstorm with colleagues
But avoid a rag-bag of multiple unrelated aims
The best proposals flow naturally from one key idea
Beware: external Co-Is will be working to a later deadline than you!
• Approach project partners early
– Met Office are much more likely to contribute in-kind support if you
tell them you are planning a proposal 12 months in advance
– Propose some text for letter of support
• Strong letters of support from project partners
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Praise the innovative nature of the proposal and track record of PI
State explicitly how the partner will contribute to the project
Put a financial value on the in-kind contribution
State how their organisation will benefit from the research
Mentors and other people to provide comments
• Identify and talk to a mentor early
• A duty of a Met academic is to be a proposal mentor if asked
– Obviously sometimes people are genuinely too busy
– Ask Robin to nominate someone if you can’t identify anyone
• A good mentor has:
– Knowledge of specialist area
– Previous success with that funding body
– An ability to be brutally honest in a tactful way!
• Typically two demands on a mentor:
– Early meeting to discuss scope of proposal
– Late draft for mentor to provide written comments
• Seek other comments too, even from busy people
– Just 10 mins to skim through a proposal is good practice for the
committee – can they get the main arguments in that time?
– Robin and Charlotte can provide comments if you give them notice
• Take careful note of all comments!
Evaluation criteria
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Is the problem to be addressed well-formulated?
Is it important, with clear external beneficiaries?
Is it a research problem, or routine application of known technique?
Do the proposers have a good idea on which to base their work?
– Is it exciting and explained in enough detail to tell if it will work?
– It is absolutely not enough merely to identify a wish-list of desirable goals
• Does the proposal explain clearly what work will be done?
– How would it be possible to judge whether the work was successful?
• Do the proposers discuss previous work and its limitations?
• Is the proposal cost-effective and ambitious, but realistic?
• Is it simultaneously comprehensible to non-experts but contains
technical details that are convincing to experts?
– Keep technical material in well-signposted sections; avoid in summary
• Is it interesting to read?
• Is it easy to skim-read?
Style
• Use recommended style: 11pt Arial, 2cm margins
– Use Helvetica in LaTeX: \renewcommand{\rmdefault}{phv}
• Right and left justify the text: looks more professional
• Number sections and subsections in the main 8-page part
– Use bold for section headings
• Proof read very carefully
– Use Word’s spelling and grammar checker
– Use a spell checker if you use LaTeX
Suggested layout of a NERC case for support
• Standard grant: 11 pages (2+8+1)
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Previous track record (2 pages)
1. Executive summary (1 page)
2. Background (1-2 pages) – could be split into several sections
3. New idea (1-2 pages) – includes figure(s)
4. Work plan (3 pages) – split into work packages
5. Management and collaboration (1/3 page)
6. Staff development and training (1/3 page)
7. References (1/3 page)
Outline Data Management Plan (1 page)
• Optional sections (each around 1/3 page)
– Risk assessment and mitigation strategy, e.g. dataset not available
– Unsuitability for other sources of funding
– Participation in international research programmes
Recent relevant references
Shrink down if necessary –
investigators’ CVs are included in
submission already
Investigators first
You are the stars and the ones on
whom the success of the project
depends, much more so than the
institution
Generic departmental blurb
Specific departmental blurb
e.g. strong support for modelling,
MetOffice@Reading, etc.
Example track record
Focus on your achievements
The PI for the project is Dr Belchina Bloggs, who manages a research group on
“clouds and caligraphy” within the Department of Meteorology consisting of 3
postdocs and 2 PhD students. The group’s aim is to understand the haptic
reservoir at the glyph-nephrological interface. The interplay between the
cursive ascender and turbulent kinetic energy dissipation has become a focus
of several ongoing studies. Dr Bloggs is also involved in an EU project on the
application of PS.
Passive verbs
Jargon and undefined acronyms
A better track record
Dr Belchina Bloggs (Principal Investigator)
Relevant expertise
2005-2009
Lecturer, Department of Meteorology, University of Reading
2009-present
Senior Lecturer, Depts of Meteorology and Typography
Dr Bloggs has published over 40 peer-reviewed papers, which have accrued
over 400 citations. She has made many advances at the interface of cloud
physics and caligraphy, of particular relevance to this proposal being her
discovery that the cursive ascender in caligraphy can be used to predict the
role of clouds in the climate system (Bloggs et al. 2008). She reformulated the
problem of turbulence in clouds in terms of Potential Squiggliness for the first
time (Bloggs 2010), and is now leading a key part of an EU project “Transform”
to apply this to global models.
Active verbs
Strong words/phrases
But note the following from the NERC Grants Handbook:
“Indicate where your previous work has contributed to the UK’s
competitiveness or to improving the quality of life.”
Laying out your arguments
Page 2
Each paragraph
should provide
one of the
following:
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5
Review and
limitations of
previous work
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What we will
actually do
Track record
Track record
Summary
Executive
Summary
Background
Background
4
Motivation
New idea and/or
key objectives
A better layout
Objectives
New idea
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8
Work
plan
Work
plan
Final blurb
Final blurb
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Impact
Page 10
Why an executive summary?
• An abstract is to entice people to read the whole
document;
• An executive summary is for people too lazy to read
the whole document
– Must be understandable without the rest of the proposal
– But it is also very useful for those who do read everything
Executive summary
Motivation
• Convective clouds important for
weather & forecasting, but
– Convection-permitting models
often still very unrealistic
– Assumptions in parameterizations
in urgent need of testing
Executive summary
Limitations of previous work;
new idea / key objective(s)
• Previous studies mostly
unrepresentative case studies
• New idea: obtain a large
database of very detailed storm
properties to test models
Executive summary
• We will
List of things that will be done to
achieve this objective
– Develop adaptive scanning
algorithm for Chilbolton radar
– Characterize 100s of storms on 40
days over 18 month period
– Derive storm properties: water
content, updraft velocity etc.
– Compare statistically with
convection parameterization
– Evaluate high resolution model
with different settings
– Tackle key scientific questions (1)
…? (2) …? (3) …?
Executive summary
Impact
• Via close collaboration with Met
Office, project is expected to
have major impact on accuracy
of storm forecasts in UK…
Executive summary
Other arguments
• This project is timely because…
– New modelling capability
– New observational capability
Provocative prose
• Easy to skim-read
– Short sentences
– Use italics to add stress: key questions, new ideas, main deliverables
• Frequent use of bullets
– Key objectives, scientific questions, tasks to be performed
– The best things come in threes
• Verb check, particularly in bullet lists:
– Weak: improve, study, understand, use, investigate, aim to, try to
– Strong: evaluate, tackle, design, generate, perform, derive, formulate,
quantify
• Avoid acronyms
– Don’t confuse your reader just to save a line or two
– Only for very common ones, e.g. ECMWF (and never use “UKMO”!)
Main body of proposal
• Background: “Background: The challenge of…”
– Motivation includes human & economic factors, not just scientific enquiry
– Stay focused on problems to be addressed by the proposal
– A (colour!) figure can quickly convey the nature of the problem
• New idea: “A new approach to…”
– Is there a figure from preliminary work that shows the idea will work?
– Explain why funding needed (preliminary work done without funding!)
• Work plan (possibly a more general methodology section first)
– Descriptive title for work packages (easy to skim read!)
– Consider Gantt chart if more than 1 researcher or have a field experiment
Work Packages (WPs)
PDRA 1: Dr Thorwald Stein
1. Design and test storm tracking algorithm
2. Apply storm tracking algorithm over 18 months
3. Derive properties from radar scans
4. Statistical analysis of observed storm cells
PDRA 2: Dr Kirsty Hanley
5. Cell tracking in operational forecast model
6. Modelling case studies and sensitivity tests
7. Long-term comparison of model and observations
8. Synthesis and hypothesis testing
Yr 1
Yr 2
Yr 3
Work packages and deliverables
• Include as much detail as you can in each work package
• Work packages must have deliverables: state at end in italics
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A paper on … OR A new technique to … described in a paper
A dataset of … released to BADC
A code / software library to … released under a free-software license
A new parametrization in the Met Office model available to future users
A web-based … (e.g. Helen Dacre’s cyclone atlas)
A prototype instrument …
• Be ambitious about no. of papers: e.g. 2x (postdoc years – 1)
– Charge a realistic total amount for page charges: e.g. 6k not 2k
– State where papers are going, and possibly stress “open access”
– Consider some papers for a wider audience, e.g. BAMS, ERL
• Deliver more than just papers!
Final blurb
• Management and collaboration
– Weekly meetings are planned between the Investigators and the PDRA(s)
to review progress and strategy
– A close collaboration will be fostered with project partners via…
• Staff development and training for PDRAs
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Access to training courses, teaching and/or project supervision
Annual Staff Development Reviews
Weekly Departmental seminars and group meetings
They will attend national and international conferences
Encouraged to engage in paper/proposal reviewing
• References: shrink as much as possible!
– 8-pt text, two column, don’t duplicate references in track record
– Consider removing titles if very short of space
Filling in the Je-S boxes
• In general
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Use Word to check grammar/spelling or proofread very carefully
Duplicating case for support text implies contempt for NERC
All sections must be understandable to a non-expert
Read the guidelines for each box in the Je-S help pages
• Objectives
– More than three short objectives: use more of your 4000 characters!
• Academic beneficiaries
– Think wider than just your narrow field
• Summary
– “Understandable to an intelligent 14 year old”
• Impact summary
– Non-academic impact only!
– Who will benefit and how, but not what you will do to ensure this
happens: that’s for the Pathways to Impact document
Pathways to impact
• Read Charlotte Johnson’s “tips” document
• Kathy Maskell (Walker Institute) can offer advice
• Met Office, ECMWF etc.
– Met Office seminar, participate at or host workshops, write COMET module
for forecasters (www.comet.ucar.edu)
– Talk to Peter Clark, MetOffice@Reading managers
• Industry: insurance, aviation, energy, instrument makers etc.
– Participate in industry workshop, stakeholder meeting in London, KTNs
– Talk to Pier Luigi Vidale, David Brayshaw or Lizzie Froude
• Policymakers
– IPCC, NERC policy workshops
• Public
– Press releases, public lectures, school visits, NERC public engagement
training, web sites
– Use the specific skills of your named postdocs
• Research staff benefit from career development
• Think of this as an integral part of the proposal, not an add on
Resources
• Justification of Resources must state why something is needed
• Always ask for generous travel, computer, page charges
– Unlikely to be queried as much less than salary costs
– Worst outcome is that they are reduced; success of proposal unaffected
• PI time typically 10% and less for Co-Is, but consider asking for
more (with justification)
– Gets lumped together as overhead, some of which comes back to your
SDA as an “incentive” payment, some to Dept which pays support staff
Good luck!
…and don’t give up if you’re not successful the first time!