How To Finance Your Research Project

Obtaining research funding can be a long, laborious and stressful process. This book helps ease this process by providing practical advice, useful tips and information about funding databases and funding directories. Covering a wide variety of funding sources such as government, industry and charity, it is suitable for researchers in the UK, US, EU and further afield. Learn how to: · Find relevant sources of funding · Produce and justify your budget · Cost your project · Complete and submit your application form · Use ethical funding organizations · Avoid conflict of interest

Writing high quality grant applications is easier when you know how research funding agencies work and how your proposal is treated in the decision-making process. The Research Funding Toolkit provides this knowledge and teaches you the necessary skills to write high quality grant applications. A complex set of factors determine whether research projects win grants. This handbook helps you understand these factors and then face and overcome your personal barriers to research grant success. The guidance also extends to real-world challenges of grant-writing, such as obtaining the right feedback, dealing effectively with your employer and partner institutions, and making multiple applications efficiently. There are many sources that will tell you what a fundable research grant application looks like. Very few help you learn the skills you need to write one. The Toolkit fills this gap with detailed advice on creating and testing applications that are readable, understandable and convincing.

Encouraging critical consideration of research design, the book guides readers step-by-step through the process of planning and undertaking a research project based on documentary analysis. It covers selecting a research topic and sample through to analysing and writing up the data.

The pressure to win funding to do research is felt by nearly all academics worldwide. This book details strategies that you might adopt to get your research projects funded. It also explains how to manage your research projects once they are funded. It explains how generic university research funding mechanisms work so that you will be better equipped to navigate your way through the financial maze associated with various funding sources.

Research can be a lonely path and there are myriad challenges and problems to face with any research project. In this research methods book, novice and experienced researchers tell stories of when things went wrong in their research projects. Drawing on real life experiences, researchers from post graduate research students to experienced professors will benefit from these insider insights, advice and lessons about the practical difficulties and how they may be addressed. The result is an engaging read and a helpful and reassuring guide to the research process. Arranged as a series of chapters interspersed with vignettes the researchers’ stories provide the reader with insights into different facets and stages of the research process from finding a supervisor thorough designing surveys and conducting interviews and analysing data, to re-writing and dealing with feedback. It will be invaluable for doctoral and more experienced researchers grappling with the realities of undertaking research.

Bridging the gap between higher education research and policy making was always a challenge, but the recent calls for more evidence-based policies have opened a window of unprecedented opportunity for researchers to bring more contributions to shaping the future of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). Encouraged by the success of the 2011 first edition, Romania and Armenia have organised a 2nd edition of the Future of Higher Education – Bologna Process Researchers’ Conference (FOHE-BPRC) in November 2014, with the support of the Italian Presidency of the European Union and as part of the official EHEA agenda. Reuniting over 170 researchers from more than 30 countries, the event was a forum to debate the trends and challenges faced by higher education today and look at the future of European cooperation in higher education. The research volumes offer unique insights regarding the state of affairs of European higher education and research, as well as forward-looking policy proposals. More than 50 articles focus on essential themes in higher education: Internationalization of higher education; Financing and governance; Excellence and the diversification of missions; Teaching, learning and student engagement; Equity and the social dimension of higher education; Education, research and innovation; Quality assurance, The impacts of the Bologna Process on the EHEA and beyond and Evidence-based policies in higher education. "The Bologna process was launched at a time of great optimism about the future of the European project – to which, of course, the reform of higher education across the continent has made a major contribution. Today, for the present, that optimism has faded as economic troubles have accumulated in the Euro-zone, political tensions have been increased on issues such as immigration and armed conflict has broken out in Ukraine. There is clearly a risk that, against this troubled background, the Bologna process itself may falter. There are already signs that it has been downgraded in some countries with evidence of political withdrawal. All the more reason for the voice of higher education researchers to be heard. Since the first conference they have established themselves as powerful stakeholders in the development of the EHEA, who are helping to maintain the momentum of the Bologna process. Their pivotal role has been strengthened by the second Bucharest conference." Peter Scott, Institute of Education, London (General Rapporteur of the FOHE-BPRC first edition)

This book is an essential resource for academics managing a large and complex research project. It provides important practical insights into the processes that inform such research projects and delivers insights into the delicate balance between industry, stakeholder and academic needs. It gives practical advice about developing relationships with diverse partners and colleagues and managing the expectations of the various parties involved and on avoiding pitfalls. This book uses examples from Australian research projects, but it contains insights relevant to researchers all around the world.