Last year, Izabella Laba described how an average Discovery grant in mathematics is spent in her blog. This discussion is very interesting as it gives some perspective on how challenging it can be to fund research in mathematics.

I posted this last year, but I still think that it provides some relevant insight into some of the challenges that math and stats researchers face. If you have the time, Dr. Laba also discusses other aspects of her experience securing enough funding to run a research program – it’s worth a read.

If you don’t ask, you can’t get.

While the pressure to stay within the “norm” is increasing in this competition, it is important for applicants to remember that it is just as dangerous to lowball research expenses as it is to ask for too much. The key element to remember is that the budget and the research plan need to be linked. If the proposal includes projects that require 5 pairs of (graduate student) hands to meet the workload demands and the budget only asks for funds for one student (with no discussion of how the other four bodies will enter the project) – the applicant has effectively demonstrated that they do not know how to plan or manage research.

Many applicants devote all of their energy to writing the research plan without any thought towards the budget until the last few days before the deadline, then they ask their colleagues what the norm is for their field and plug that data into their budget forms. If you plan for a Porche and budget for a Smart Car, you are either going to be driving a Smart Car or not driving at all. The new scorecard system for binning applicants based on their budget request is going to make planning an appropriate budget an increasingly important element of Discovery Grant applications.

So how do you find out the norm? Ask colleagues, look at the statistical analysis of previous Discovery Grant competitions (links to: 2009 data, 2008 data), search through the NSERC award database to find out what competitive labs are receiving and then make a budget that is closely linked to the research plan.

While the GSGs are no more, looking up the min/average/max award amounts for the most relevant GSGs will help provide a ballpark of the normal funding levels for a particular field of study. This information is available from either the statistics links above or the NSERC Awards Search Engine. Some departments and/or research offices also keep records on the norm and might provide an opportunity to find out the budget breakdown in addition to the budget totals. It can’t hurt to ask – you never know what data might be shared.

While knowing the total award doesn’t tell the entire story and shouldn’t dictate the budget to apply for, it does give a guideline when writing a research plan to ensure that the plan (and linked budget) fall within a normal funding range for a particular field. This information is most useful for new applicants who are uncertain how to set their first budget, but is a good touchstone for returning applicants as well.

From the NSERC DG2010 Information Session slides & the DG2009 statistics:

To give a bit more context to the previous post.

In the past, successful returning applicants were somewhat assured of a fairly steady level of funding. NSERC rules allowed for up to a 50% reduction in award for returning applicants, but this has rarely been applied. Generally, the expectation is that if you are successful, you will be funded at either the same or a slightly higher level than your previous Discovery award. Times sure have changed.

The DG2008 pooled success rate was 71%. The DG2009 success rate declined to 63.5% and more telling, the variation in award level scatter plot actually shows scatter. (See this post for a link to the statistical analysis.) DG2009 marked the first step of a phased change in the evaluation process for Discovery grants. (See this post for more discussion on these changes and links to official FAQs.) To briefly recap, the Grant Selection Committees (GSCs) are no more. They have been replaced with Evaluation Groups (EGs). The EG implementation is new for this competition, however, DG2010 will be the second year of implementing the funding level ‘binning’ system (a method for scoring applications based on their budget request, as either high, low or normal.)

This year will also be the first year for the separation of the evaluation and funding level decision steps. (Last year the GSCs implemented binning and made the funding decisions – this year the EGs get to scorecard and a separate group sets the funding level.) Theoretically, this new system will reduce cronyism by funding applications based purely on relative score, however, I suspect that the phase-in of this process will be a slow and somewhat painful experience for applicants used to the current system.

While the creation of EGs seems like a big deal, it will probably be the easiest change to swallow as it will allow for more flexible review of applications. The more difficult element for applicants will be building a budget that does not damage their chances for application success by scoring too high or too low on the evaluation indicator scorecard. The next few posts will be dedicated to providing suggestions on how to build a normal (?) budget.

Last week, I covered a few general, but still important topics in the grant preparation process.

Discovery 2010 – Important Links included a list of links to important instructions and other sources of information.

Discovery 2010 – making your plan includes a list of the tasks involved in Discovery grant preparation to help prepare a work plan to the (now) 5 week away deadline.

DG2010 – proposal structure describes the necessary parts of the written proposal and provides a suggested structure for headings within the five page document. There is also some discussion of the different information that should be provided on HQP in the proposal and the CV attachments.

DG2010 – Selection Criteria & Indicators builds on the proposal structure post and provides additional links and discussion of how to relate the proposal to the selection criteria and evaluation indicators. The evaluation indicator matrix is a new document for this competition that provides an “at a glance” reference to how reviewers will score the applications.

DG2010 – presentation guidelines jumps back into the mundane details of what the free-form attachments need to look like and also discusses the challenge of selecting an appropriate font.

This week will include a discussion of some of the changes to the DG program as well as begin a series on developing a grant application budget.