Source: http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/3128/4331
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 06:53:37+00:00

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Abstract: The current research climate has heightened expectations for social science researchers to secure research grant funding at the same time that such funding appears to be more competitive than ever. As a result, researchers experience anxiety, confusion, loss of confidence, second guessing, and a lack of trust in the system and themselves. This autoethnographic study provides an insider perspective on the intellectual, emotional, and physical experience of grant writing. A team of scholars document the production of a research grant for their major national funding agency, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The story is presented through epistolary narrative in the form of a series of unsent letters addressed to the funding agency. The letters foreground themes of expertise, identity, and time as they were shaped through the grant-writing process. The analysis draws attention to unnecessary complexities and challenges that could and should be eliminated from granting processes if the intention is to foster quality research and strengthen research capacity. Implications may prove instructive for other grant applicants, resource personnel employed to support applicants, and potential funders.
4.7 Research team or application team?
Serious writing began mid-July 2016 and continued uninterrupted until October 7, the day of submission. The writing process often felt artificial due to the requirement to write segments of particular lengths to fit pre-specified headings and categories. I spent more than 300 hours during that almost three-month period and that estimate does not count preparatory work before we officially launched our writing or the time of the co-applicants, collaborators, and resource personnel with whom I worked. We drafted and redrafted sections repeatedly. Table 1 identifies the number of drafts for each section of the grant application saved to my computer. Other team members have additional interim drafts on their computers, so this list is only a partial representation of the texts produced by the team.
SSHRC, can we simplify the expectations, cut unnecessary detail, give more space when needed, re-think what is "minimum essential funding"? Isn't the point to do good research, not just pare the cost to the bone?
In writing our application, I wish I could say with confidence that we trusted our own expertise, rather than trying to conform to some ghostly template of "what SSHRC wants."
My e-mailed instructions were conveyed to the other team member and she was able to make the desired changes, but I'm left wondering if there might be better ways to focus our energies as scholars. SSHRC, do you think that being able to navigate a complex online system is an appropriate measure of research potential? If applicants need technical support to navigate such systems, do they have access to institutional personnel or funding to hire someone?
Although my tone might suggest that I doubt the institutional decision to preclude me as a co-applicant, that is not entirely a fair portrayal of my thinking. I don't have the same academic freedoms as academic staff and my research is often connected to my job or a mode of professional development (whereby I demonstrate myself as a scholarly ally but not peer to academics). The consequences of this situation for research are important—research I lead could be influenced by the politics and practices of my workplace and supervisor. This constraint has meant that scholarly work that is not approved by my workplace is done on my own time and cannot be presented with my institutional affiliation. I have not yet figured out where this project will land; I suspect it will be a combination of hobby and work. SSHRC, I doubt you would see collaborators as research hobbyists but perhaps that is at least one of the best ways to think about who I am.
In practice, our international collaborators have been generous with their time and advice, and we still hope to generate some comparative research, although funding for such a purpose remains elusive. But how can Canada be "a global leader in humanities and social sciences research and research training" (SSHRC, 2016, p.9) without more support and encouragement for working, researching, and traveling abroad?
Despite these positives for engaging student assistants, we have struggled to provide a balanced budget with full justification for each expense. Students need training and supervision to achieve the potential gains from these learning opportunities. We know from experience that the hours can add up quickly. It is time-intensive work. We hope you will recognize the importance of allocating substantial time to ensure research quality and provide rich experiences for student assistants. Such opportunities are a key mechanism for advancing research and research training.
I recall the feelings of urgency and necessity: Funding is needed! Funding will ensure the work means something! With funding, I/we will be recognizable as particular kinds of scholars! But, dear SSHRC, applications and funding just don't mean the same thing to me now as they did in graduate school. I am not sure what it will mean for each member of our team. But reading the interview transcripts from the pilot projects suggests we have a mess of emotions, analyses, and critiques about being researchers. I anticipate we will continue to untangle these considerations as we wait to hear what you, SSHRC, want and as we continue to occupy that unstable, and at times uncomfortable, place of researcher and researched.
Our efforts take place with the recognition that even if we are chosen, minimum essential funding may not enable us to make our intended contributions. Could the process of applying for a SSHRC Insight Grant be more humane? Is it only a matter of the government allocating more money to SSHRC? If there is never enough money, then spreading smaller amounts across more applicants may seem a better strategy, but what do reduced budgets do to the quality of research that can be produced? How do these decisions affect Canada's place in the social science research world? Is it possible to alter the emphasis so that time and attention goes to doing research rather than to writing grant applications? We would like to think that "what SSHRC wants" is excellent scholarship, however defined, but that focus sometimes gets lost in the black box of grant application and adjudication.
Please accept my warmest congratulations on your success in this competition and my very best wishes for a productive period of research activity.
SSHRC must work hand in hand with scholars to ensure continued vitality and to maintain "the lifeblood of humanities and social science research in Canada" (DINEEN, 2007, p.3).
This work was funded in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (435-2017-0104). Thank you to our international collaborator, Oili-Helena YLIJOKI, who provided useful feedback on a draft of this paper, including confirming our descriptions of the Finnish system. We also acknowledge the contributions of other team members named on the grant application (Eve HAQUE and Lisa LUCAS) and those who have joined us since then (Pushpa HAMAL and Caitlin CAMPISI). An earlier version of this article was presented at the Canadian Society for the Study of Higher Education annual conference in Toronto, Canada on May 30, 2017.
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Michelle K. McGINN (PhD) is Interim Associate Vice-President Research and Professor of Education at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. Her primary interests relate to research collaboration, researcher development, scholarly writing, and ethics in academic practice. She is a co-investigator on the Academic Researchers in Challenging Times project from which this article is drawn.
Sandra ACKER (PhD) is Professor Emerita, Department of Social Justice Education, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She is a sociologist of education whose research has highlighted gender and other equity issues in the careers and workplace cultures of teachers, doctoral students, academics, and academic administrators. She is the principal investigator for the Academic Researchers in Challenging Times project.
Marie VANDER KLOET (PhD) is Assistant Director of the Teaching Assistants' Training Program and the Centre for Teaching Support & Innovation at the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In addition to being a collaborator on the Academic Researchers in Challenging Times project, her current research focuses on three areas of higher education: graduate student teaching and professional development; contingent faculty, labor and pedagogy; and accessibility and equity in higher education.
Anne WAGNER (PhD) is Associate Professor, Department of Social Work, Nipissing University, North Bay, Ontario, Canada. Her teaching and research interests include the areas of gender, race, social justice, (higher) education, critical pedagogies and violence against women. She is a co-investigator on the Academic Researchers in Challenging Times research project.
McGinn, Michelle K.; Acker, Sandra; Vander Kloet, Marie & Wagner, Anne (2019). Dear SSHRC, What Do You Want? An Epistolary Narrative of Expertise, Identity, and Time in Grant Writing [70 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 20(1), Art. 8, http://dx.doi.org/10.17169/fqs-20.1.3128.

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