Key Comments on Industry Fellowships
dr shane huntington | april 2023
There is little doubt that the funding landscape in Australia is becoming both more complicated and more competitive.
Dr Shane Huntington
Grant applications that might have previously been funded based on the research and track record alone are now commonly failing if the communication standard is poor. Over the last decade, the need to seriously improve the standard of applications from the communication perspective has led to many seeking expert external advice. Consultants like myself have the advantage of seeing many grants each year. This enables us to build a coherent picture of what makes grants successful. The team from Outside Opinion has again demonstrated significant success for the Industry Fellowships we support. Even those that were not successful are more coherent and better positioned for subsequent rounds. So a few thoughts from me after the first round of this new grant scheme.
Image: Australian Research Council
1. A New Scheme
The new ARC Industry Fellowship seems to have been designed to specifically enable greater integration between researchers and industry. Many programs in the past have spoken about impact but in this case the description of this requirement is far more specific. It makes up some 25% of all fellowship level assessments and is focused on “the significance of the industry challenge”. Part of the grant assessment is made by an Industry Panel – making this section of the application very different from most ARC schemes. Non-specific descriptions of activities in the grant will not be viewed favorably by industry assessors.
These grants are also designed to enable researchers to be imbedded in industry settings for at least 20% of the project activity period. This will require a deep engagement with industry partners – far beyond being ‘partners on paper’ for grant purposes. At the Laureate level the ARC goes even further and provides up to $20,000 per year to support ‘ambassadorial’ activities, promoting industry-university collaboration.
The commitment and alignment section of the application, also worth 25%, seems to be specifically designed to test how closely the parties are working together. Even at the ECR level, there are requirements to speak about previous projects and interactions. Applicants must demonstrate mutual benefit for both parties. I would strongly advise against applications where the industry partner has been ‘found at the last minute’. This is always glaringly obvious to experienced reviewers and is completely inconsistent with the details of the scheme.
I always advise applicants to demonstrate clearly that they meet all the criteria specified – it is never enough to just ‘tell’ the reviewers the criteria are met. The assessment criteria for this scheme is quite detailed and clear about the requirements. Value and commitment must be shown by both parties.
Industry drivers are very different to academic drivers – these grant applications must accommodate both groups from a review perspective. This is a challenging and sophisticated communication challenge and will be very new to many applicants.
2. Communication Requirements
This is a new scheme with very specific assessment criteria. Solid applications will address all these criteria in a meaningful way and make these responses easy to find for assessors. The use of non-specific terms to hide a lack of clarity will not bode well for applicants. The early sections of grants (plain language summary, first page of grant) are always the make or break of applications. The use of technical jargon, statements with unclear logic, extended sentences, and poorly constructed prose will significantly reduce the chance of success. The overuse of words such as ‘innovative’, ‘novel’, ‘critical’, ‘framework’, etc without explanation should be avoided. When sentences have a structure that is of the form A and B and C, along with D, but E mean we get F – odds are I have stopped caring about half way through. Short sharp logical sentences always communicate more clearly and mimic how we would have verbal conversations.
For the Laureate level Fellowships the Candidate Capability section is worth a whopping 30%. It contains requirements such as “The candidate’s potential to create an enduring legacy through acting as a senior academic-end user ambassador”. Responses to requirements like this will be unfamiliar to many academics. The normal responses to throw away sections in many grants communication of results’ will not be sufficient in these applications.
I strongly advise applicants get clear advice on how to communicate elements of importance to industry partners and assessors. For example, the management of intellectual property. It is not enough to say ‘the IP is protected’. There are many nuances required to this communication and they can also be used to further demonstrate the level of sophistication of the collaboration.
3. Application Advice and Feedback
The first piece of advice I always give to grant applicants in workshops is to make sure you are fully across the specific elements of the scheme. This should involve discussions with staff from university research offices, especially around compliance requirements and whether or not they are being adequately met. It can also be helpful to tabulate the assessment requirements and objectively tick them off as they are met in the application.
The new Industry Fellowship scheme again demonstrates the need for very sophisticated communication expertise. If this is not available internally, it should be sourced from outside institutions. The majority of the advice I end up giving on grants relates to the communication standards of the writing and layout, with the remainder often relating to the strategic planning of the project.
The success rates for this new scheme are low (sub 10% of MCR Fellowships). A strong focus on communication for these applications is essential. All applicants should factor an extra 7-10 days into planning to enable external consultant reviews and subsequent redevelopment of grants to optimise chances of success.
Dr Shane Huntington OAM has been providing consulting services in communication and strategy for over 20 years. During his 10 years as a researcher, he has acquired more than $6 million in competitive grants from the ARC and government, and has trained thousands of researchers in a wide range of skills and research areas.
