• Question: How do fund your research?

    Asked by abram to Anzy, Aoife, Dave, Matt, Tomasz on 17 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: David Christensen

      David Christensen answered on 17 Nov 2013:

      My research is funded by the Medical Research Council (they also give me the money that I’m paid). The Medical Research Council (MRC) are a quasi-non-governmental organisation, which means that the government doesn’t control what they do, but does decide how much money they have. Basically this means that my money all comes from taxpayers as this is where the government gets its money. The MRC decide what research should be funded by the government.

      Because my money comes from everybody in this country who pays tax, I think it is important for me to talk about what I do with non-scientists so that people find out about what their taxes pay for.

      Generally I don’t worry about funding though. I applied for a PhD project which I was told would be funded, so for the 4 years of this project, I know I will have enough money to do my work.

    • Photo: Anzy Miller

      Anzy Miller answered on 17 Nov 2013:

      My research is funded by the Wellcome Trust (who have also given money to this to allow us to talk to you!). This is a charity that funds research and was started when Sir Henry Wellcome left a lot of money in his will to start it up!

      As Dave has said – this pays for the things I need to research, and also pays me!

    • Photo: Matthew Tomlinson

      Matthew Tomlinson answered on 18 Nov 2013:

      I’m like Dave and Anzy in that I’m funded by charity and the tax-payer. My funding comes from the Wellcome Trust and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). I’m a little different because I’m part of a much larger project at Leeds involving around 100 other researchers and the amount of money we got to do this research was about £10 million over 5 years, which runs out next September.

      In the past I’ve been funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (another government body) and the European Union.

      To get the money you have to write a grant, which is a (long) document that shows everything you want to do, why you want to do it, what the outcomes could be and how much money you need. This is then assessed by a group of people at the place you are applying to (which is mostly non-government places like the MRC, EPSRC etc and charities like the Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research UK). If these people think the research is good enough compared to all the other applications then you get the money. However because there are so many people applying at the same time your proposal has to be really good to get the funding, which is why the success rate for grant applications is around 30-40%. This means that you spend a lot of time applying for money that you don’t get so it can be annoying.

      I’m now looking to get some further funding for my research so I’m starting to write grants that will hopefully give me the chance to stay on at Leeds. If I don’t get the funding then I may have to leave the University and get a job somewhere else, so it can be a little stressful!

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