Memory funding case studies
Putting together a successful grant application is very much a team effort, which members of the Memory Hub can assist with. If you have an idea you'd like to explore, need some help to focus your ideas or would like to pass your first draft through an internal peer-review, we are here to provide support.
Submit your request to Emma Cahill and an appropriate academic will be found to provide you with constructive feedback which will improve your chances of success.
If you need help with your impact statement or require data to support your application, you should contact the appropriate Research Development team member who will be able to assist.
Successful examples of the process are listed in more detail below.
If at first you don't succeed.... BBSRC applications (Jack Mellor)
Jack Mellor is Professor of Neuroscience in the School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience
We submitted a grant application entitled "Plasticity of inhibitory transmission in the hippocampus" to the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) in 2015, a collaboration between experimental and theoretical approaches, which I thought was great but was unsuccessful. After getting over the disappointment we presented the ideas within the memory community and reworked the proposal based on constructive feedback. It turned out our colleagues have a good eye and the grant was resubmitted and awarded in 2016. We then presented a draft of ideas for a follow-on grant in open forum in 2019 where it was strongly suggested that we adopt an alternative experimental approach. Again, this was good advice and the application was successfully awarded in 2020.
Bug as many people as you can – Cian O’Donnell
Dr Cian O'Donnell was a Lecturer in Computer Science, School of Computer Science, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and Engineering Mathematics based in the Faculty of Engineering (now based at Ulster)
When preparing an application for a Medical Research Council (MRC) New Investigator award in 2018, I had a rough plan of what I wanted the scientific project to look like, but was struggling with how to pitch it. About a month before the deadline I sent my grant draft to a senior Bristol Neuroscience (BN) colleague who basically told me to reframe the whole text to focus on what the eventual payoff would be for human health (previously I was just jumping straight into the science). They also gave useful feedback on how strong or weak a link I had to make from the grant to eventual clinical translation. In the end the grant needed so much work I decided to skip the upcoming deadline and postpone applying til 6 months later. I think this early effort followed by time for reflection really strengthened the grant in the long run. About two months before the next deadline, I spoke to another senior BN colleague who gave more guidance on how to pitch it. Specifically, I wasn’t sure whether I should focus just on autism in the grant plan or to also look at related neurodevelopmental disorders. I worried that the latter would make me sound naïve. The BN colleague even directed me to a field expert in Cardiff, who I then had a 30 min phone call with to get even more advice on pitch. Finally, closer to the deadline I sent the grant around to 4-5 colleagues for feedback, each of who gave useful and distinct advice. I have no doubt that all these extensive back-and-forths, over a long period of time helped the grant get funded!
