Less money, more competition
The battle of the grants
Door Rob van der Wal
By Rob van der Wal
Rob van der Wal
Rob begon als student-redacteur bij UKrant en is sinds mei 2023 terug als vaste medewerker. Hij schrijft nieuwsberichten, achtergrondartikelen – met een voorkeur voor wetenschap – en houdt zich bezig met internationaliseringszaken. Daarnaast werkt Rob als freelance wetenschapsjournalist. In zijn vrije tijd is hij drummer, radiomaker en moestuinier.At the Faculty of Law, which has a budget of approximately thirty million a year, the annual external funding has to go from 3.5 to 5 or even 5.5 million euros. That’s a considerable increase – enough to cover the budget deficit over the next few years.
To increase the chance of funding, the research posts for lecturers, associate professors, and full professors have been expanded from 35 to 40 percent. ‘We’d eventually like to have external funds pay for half of that research time’, says Alma Erenstein, funding officer at the faculty. The separate departments will also get a target: each department should raise around 200 to 450 thousand euros, depending on their size.
‘That’s going to be tough’, Erenstein acknowledges. ‘Whether we’ll succeed will depend quite a bit on what other law faculties will be doing.’ If the law faculties in, for example, Leiden or Utrecht also want to rake in more external funding, which seems likely because of the government’s cutbacks, it will become harder for everyone.
‘The people here know that their chances of making the target aren’t very high’, says Erenstein. At the same time, they’re worried about the effects of the budget cuts. ‘But they’re willing to do the work to ensure that their colleagues can stay.’
External funding
At the Faculty of Science and Engineering (FSE), the amount needed in external funding is much higher than at the law faculty. At eighty million, the secondary and tertiary funding flows make up 40 percent of the total budget.
The secondary funding comes from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The tertiary funding comes from the European Union, regional funds such as the Northern Netherlands Alliance (SSN) and the National Programme Groningen (NPG), as well as corporate partnerships.
In previous years, the primary funding, provided by the government, was all but a certainty. But the current budget cuts have changed this. ‘Perhaps we should start treating the government funds as temporary, too’, says FSE faculty funding officer Mark Kas.
Perhaps we should start treating the government funds as temporary, too
It’s also difficult to get more funding elsewhere, especially when it concerns one-on-one corporate partnerships. ‘Very few larger corporations have their head office in Groningen, which doesn’t make us an obvious partner’, says Kas. ‘And the smaller and medium-sized companies don’t even have money for research and development.’
Success rate
The UG could try to increase its chances of success for grant applications from the secondary and tertiary funding flows, says Kas. Right now, the success rate lies at around 15 percent. ‘I see how hard people work on these applications; they can’t really handle any more work. The problem is that every single university is trying to get more income, which means the success rate stays the same.’
At the Stratingh Institute, the entire research group’s continued existence hinges on raising funding. ‘The worries come and go and the success rates are not high’, says professor in complex systems chemistry Sijbren Otto (Stratingh institute). ‘Fortunately, recently one big grant came in. But I would have really been in trouble if it came in one or two years later.’
It’s become harder to get grants in the past few years. The NWO has barely increased its budgets, if at all, while the number of academics has increased, Otto and his colleague Clemens Mayer have noticed.
Corporate partnerships
Things are even more difficult when it comes to fundamental research, the principal type of research done at the Stratingh Institute. Money for research that is more focused on corporate interests can be raised more easily, says Mayer, associate professor of molecular biology: ‘So I have to start thinking: are we going to change our research to match more with the funding landscape?’
So I have to start thinking: are we going to change our research to match more with the funding landscape?
The alternative is to focus more on corporate partnerships. ‘But that is hard for us as well’, says Otto. ‘We do long-term research, while companies look strongly to the short term. With our research, they cannot make a short-term business case.’
Then there’s the primary funding, from the government. This pays for education and staff salaries. But it doesn’t really pay for PhD students and post-doctoral researchers, even though they’re the ones doing all the research.
‘That means we are more reliant on EU funding now’, says Otto. But so are many other European countries that have slashed or are planning to slash their national budget, such as Italy, Poland, or Austria. At the same time, the European research budget will also shrink over the next few years. That only increases the competition.
It creates a ‘trickle-down effect’: the government’s cost-cutting plans will mean the university will become less competitive in the global arena, which will diminish their claim on EU funds, Erenstein thinks. ‘I wonder if the government realised that.’ That means funding officers, who help applying for subsidies, are more important than eve.r
Team effort
They certainly take the issue seriously at the Zernike Institute. Every practice meeting in defence of a grant application is attended by multiple colleagues. Editors check every single application.
‘They check whether the application conveys exactly what the researcher is trying to say’, says Jan Peter Birkner, funding officer and research manager at the Zernike Institute. ‘Academics used to be solely responsible for grant applications, but these days, it’s a team effort.’
That’s because the institute wants to increase its budget from secondary and tertiary funding from 55 to 66 percent over the next few years. ‘That decision was made even before the budget cuts were announced’, says Birkner. ‘We want that balance in supervisors, PhD students, and technical support. That means we need that many grants.’
While years ago, external funding also represented two thirds of their income, he think it will be difficult to make that target today. ‘Our team consists of fairly young researchers. They’ll have to prove themselves before they can start raking in the bigger grants.’
Perhaps we could raise money through crowdfunding
To make their target, Birkner and his colleagues are looking for specific funding sources that match the institute. Collaboration is becoming increasingly important to ensuring funding. ‘It used be just about academic quality, but these days, corporate partnerships or collaborating with artists are needed to bring in funding.’
If researchers want to increase their chances of getting a grant, they have to start thinking about their research proposal well ahead of time, says Birkner. ‘Researchers regularly are late with things they don’t have to do themselves, such as texts in the research proposal about data management or the institutional budget.’
Eleven grants
In spite of Otto and Mayer’s concerns, ‘their’ Stratingh Institute is actually one of the most successful institutes at the UG: they were awarded at least eleven grants this year. ‘And we are doing quite well on EU grants at the moment’, says Otto.
What’s their secret? ‘It’s the support structure we have at Stratingh’, says Mayer. ‘Once I have a reasonable application, I give it to my colleague, and for grant interviews we do mock sessions. That way, we prepare everybody to do their best.’
This only works if previous researchers at the institute have successfully applied for grants; they know how everything works. ‘If there is a university that doesn’t have an ERC grant, they have a problem setting this up.’
It’s also important that people are honest with each other about the weaker points in their applications, Otto emphasises. ‘I know other institutes have a similar culture. But it’s a little bit easier here because we know each other a bit better, as we have a small group. ‘
The law faculty has already changed for the better by focusing on each researcher’s personal funding plans. In 2023, twenty-six personal grants were awarded to researcher at the faculty; this year, that number is up to fifty-one.
There is room for improvement at FSE. They could stand to be a little more unconventional, Kas says. ‘Perhaps we could raise money through crowdfunding.’ Researchers could also try to be more creative in who they partner with. ‘Astronomers are working with the Waddenvereniging, because of the light pollution on the mudflats. But that’s not necessarily an obvious choice.’