03- Prof. Roger Barker- Writing for research funding

In this interview, Dr Sandrine Soubes question Prof. Roger Barker about his approach to seeking research funding and what he has learned over the years as a reviewer of research grant and fellowships applications. BioProf. Roger Barker is a clinician working as Professor of Clinical Neuroscience on Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Cambridge. Roger is Honorary Consultant in Neurology at the University of Cambridge and at Addenbrooke’s Hospital.  He trained at Oxford and London and has been in his current position since 2000, after completing an MRC Clinician Scientist Fellowship. He is the Director of the “Pluripotent stem cells and engineered cells” hub of the UK Regenerative Medicine Platform.Find Roger here: https://www.neuroscience.cam.ac.uk/directory/profile.php?barkerWords of wisdom·      Have clarity of what you really want to do when you start writing for research funding.·      It is easy to let yourself be driven by what you think the funders want to hear and to end up writing applications that are just over-squeezed into the frame of a funder. This is likely to not help your application.·      Being overambitious with a funding application is a mistake often observed. Remember to really ask yourself whether what you are proposing is realistic to achieve.·      Identifying what you really want to do with your research project is incredibly critical as you will need much perseverance and resilience to access research funding.·      Pilot data are there to provide evidence to the reviewers that you can do the work that you are proposing and that the techniques are adequate to answer your research question.·      Your proposal needs a hypothesis (testable and interesting)- that is the research question you want to answer- and some clear aims, which are the approaches you are going to take to answer your question.·      “Simplicity is a wonderful thing”·      You want to aim for:-       Clarity of narrative-       Simplicity of ideas·      Don’t smother your reader with details and technical language.·      Be cautious with over-the-top and exaggerated language when presenting why your project is important.·      Do not attempt to write proposals in a rush; you need to give yourself the time to spot the problems and get plenty feedback from multiple sources.·      Resilience in research funding can be helped by reviewing in depth failed applications through conversations with the research team; critical feedback and panel reviewers may help you develop a much better project than you had originally planned.·      Put yourself in the shoes of the reviewers. You want them to understand quickly and easily what it is that you want to do and what the big question you want to address is.·      If those providing feedback are not critical enough, seek other harsher critics so that their inputs really challenge your thinking about your proposal.This interview is sponsored by the UKRMP- the UK Regenerative Medicine Platform: https://www.ukrmp.org.uk/hubs/ To discuss this further or to be a guest on the Podcast contact Sandrine: [email protected] the Podcast insights directly into your mailbox by joining my mailing list hereEpisode on website