Things that could be done better to support applicants
Respondents were asked to list any areas their institution could develop further to better support the development of OLT grant applications. The data are presented and discussed by size of institution below.
A-size institutions (FTE academic staff <500)
The smaller among these institutions indicated that they had very limited resources to draw upon. Two respondents commented that their institutions could benefit from having internal learning and teaching grants programs. (Only four out of nine A-size institutions had internal grants.) Another said they had 'a very small pool of staff who could apply for (OLT) grants, given the size of our institution'. They thought they could improve the confidence in staff to believe 'that they can actually apply' and connect potential applicants with institutional networks. A fourth respondent said their institution had no internal processes 'given the rarity of applications'. They commented that some protocols and strategies may help and thought they could also utilise the services of an 'external coach' in addition to 'building a clear relationship with relevant officers in OLT'. Similarly, the respondent from a fifth institution said they 'employ a part-time staff member to assist in writing applications'. Another responded indicated they would like to have 'more support in writing the applications'.
Among the larger of the A-size institutions, there was a sense of some activities, resources and processes in place to support grant applicants. Staff from three institutions commented on what could help things along in this space. One respondent said they could have greater organisation of and access to resources, plus they would like to 'encourage applicants to start the writing process earlier'. They also thought they could 'build the culture of critical friends and mentoring from institutional staff'. A staff member from another institution said that more academic staff who had experience running learning and teaching research projects 'would enable a better support network for staff new to the area'. The third contributor said their institution was implementing a panel to 'assess applications at the concept stage' which will allow early identification of projects. This would 'prevent staff time being spent on poor ideas' and also 'identify strong ideas and focus our extremely valuable one on one support'. The introduction of the panel would necessitate the 'development of an accompanying concept form and guidance for assessors'.
B-size institutions (FTE academic staff 500 to 1,000)
Despite their FTE academic staff size, three out of the eight institutions which participated in this research do not have internal grants schemes. Respondents from two of these institutions thought it would be good if they did have such schemes.
Three respondents commented on staff resource issues. One said having 'more staff dedicated to all stages of professional development around grants (and T&L scholarship in general)' would be beneficial. Another wanted their role to be more evaluative of applications rather than providing writing support. They also thought that the impending cessation of funding for a current administrative position was 'a threat to the continuation of program as it is currently configured'. A third respondent thought that (recently) 'suppressed' academic advisor positions should be reinstated to benefit their institution’s OLT grants scheme. They wanted 'more consistent grant writing support' through permanent appointments.
Six staff thought their institutions could do better in terms of helping applicants understand the importance of longer lead in times in developing their applications and being strategic in their approach. One said, 'applicants generally don’t think about T&L grants until the internal EOI for current grants rounds comes out, which is too late to start things'. Another said it is important to help people understand that 'the earlier the conversations and thinking begin about development of a project and who the key participants will be', the greater likelihood of success. They wanted to encourage 'longer term planning by researchers'. The third respondent picked up on this theme, expressing that while they have 'good processes in place, we have more work to do with encouraging staff to be more strategic in their applications and to be more engaged with higher education priorities'. For the fourth respondent, the idea of connecting early with staff helped address applicants’ wasted efforts:
Supporting the generation of ideas for OLT grant proposals, and providing feedback to applicants prior to writing an application to avoid the situation where staff write a full application for a topic which is not within scope of the OLT's priorities.
The fifth questionnaire respondent thought it was important to establish a venue to 'identify, encourage and support ideas that will translate to excellent grant opportunities'. In terms of ‘early connections’ the sixth respondent’s comments concerned late requests for letters of support where the institution would be a partner on an OLT project. They said, 'despite having an explicit internal process … that require academics to notify us early of upcoming involvement in grant applications, we still receive late requests … for letters of support'. On this theme, another person indicated that their internal processes needed to be tightened when they lamented that they needed to 'track OLT grant activity led by other institutions as not all academics report their application activity to us or always use our processes to generate letters of support from (the DVC)'.
Knowing what other institutions do was a way one respondent obtained ideas for what might be done at their institution:
Through participation in the (PEN) network, we learned other universities run grant writing syndicates to allow academics to develop skills and work collaboratively to develop ideas for applications. Initiating and implementing this kind of workshop would be something we'd ideally like to establish to enable capacity building for staff.
C-size institutions (FTE academic staff >1,000 but <1,500)
A desire for more resources was expressed by some respondents in both A- and B-size institutions. One C-size institution commentator made the same point when they said, 'more resources would always be helpful, particularly to support an ever increasing number of proposals in light of the Category 1 funding status that OLT grants now attract'. A person from another institution observed that 'the ICO role was traditionally shared between two professional staff positions (and this) has been reduced to one in 2014 which has also compromised capacity to support applicants more holistically'.
Another theme evident in the A- and B-size institutions was the need for applicants to begin thinking about their projects earlier to allow time for rigorous development. One C-size institution observer said they needed to have 'increased engagement with potential applicants earlier in the grant writing cycle'. This was echoed by another institution’s respondent who thought ‘the earlier the better’ in relation to three activities. Their thoughts are worth relating in full:
First, engage applicants much earlier in the application development process. Some people do start on their applications early and if they’re open to being supported there’s plenty of assistance available to them. Most people, however, come to internal review with incomplete applications and often it’s the first time (the internal review panel) has seen the work. Most times these applications are underdeveloped and are not recommended for endorsement. So, seeing peoples’ work earlier is something we need to work on; (2) Have writing retreats early in the year which offer a mix of information and activities to help people write to the OLT requirements; (3) Have the internal review three to four weeks before the OLT deadline. We've traditionally had it 5-10 working days beforehand which means there’s very little scope for people whose applications require a bit more focused work to develop it further.
At another institution, a respondent thought they had to improve their grant development processes to have the same sort of rigour as they had for the OLT awards. They had a 'comprehensive and robust process to support and select OLT award nominees … support and resources for supporting grants are limited and greater access to mentors would greatly enhance how we support applicants'. On the matter of better supporting applicants, an Institutional Contact Officer from a different institution thought that greater engagement of educational developers in supporting others to develop grants was desirable; 'the problem with being the ICO or having a dedicated role is that other staff don’t think it’s their business'. The idea of more targeted engagement with applicants was expressed by staff from two other institutions. One said they needed to develop further ways of conveying OLT and sector priorities to staff to stimulate project interests. Another wanted to see 'targeted topics for development into grants', with support over a two- to four-month timeline for staff to develop their applications.
Finally, one questionnaire respondent thought that competing priorities between faculties and central offices 'compromise consistent provision of in-depth feedback and development support for all applicants'. On this point, they thought institutional targets for discipline specific research outputs may have 'taken the focus off learning and teaching in some faculties'. This is interesting to note in relation to the increase in applications due to OLT grants now being Category 1 research funding noted by a B-size institution respondent at the beginning of this section.
D-size institutions (FTE academic staff ≥1,500)
While it is apparent that D-size institutions generally have a greater scale of activities, resources and processes to support the development of OLT grant applications, this does not mean they are without their challenges or areas for improvement.
One D-size institution respondent said that having OLT grants as Category 1 research funding had resulted in 'greater interest … being demonstrated at higher research levels so that there is pressure for OLT grants to be overseen away from the Teaching and Learning area'. Conversely, according to a respondent from another institution, the upgrade to Category 1 was seen as a way of raising the profile of learning and teaching which had for so long 'played a poor relation' to ‘research’:
The tide is most definitely turning with the announcement of the Category 1 success, together with a suite of internal grant opportunities leading to OLT application, and a Vice-Chancellor who has a strong focus on education. We have over several years developed strong relationships with Associate Deans of Education who are now championing the move forward in the teaching and learning space.
In the previous section it was shown that in some C-size institutions, support at the faculty level played a role in OLT grant application development in addition to centralised assistance. One respondent from a D-size institution noted that 'overall OLT grant development is highly devolved to the faculties and schools but also observed that the skill level and time available at the faculty and school level is uneven'. A staff member at another university indicated they although faculty staff reviewed applications, the institution 'do(es) not have staff working at the central level whose focus is the development of OLT grants'. They were, however, beginning to offer some budget development assistance centrally. A commentator from a different institution put forward the following argument to establish centralised assistance:
The university needs to develop a whole of university approach that better supports a progressive grant process, as in, smaller seed type grants that could then be grown into potential OLT grant applications. A more established and clearly specific promoting excellence team that is known across the university as the go-to place for all things OLT. Have a fantastic suite of resources; thus provide the people hours and $s (sic) to achieve that.
To conclude this section, a number of respondents from different universities offered a range of ideas on what they thought their respective institutions could do better to support the development of OLT grant applications. The suggestions basically relate to some important stages of the ‘application development cycle’. One person wanted 'clearer guidelines for how to develop (applications) and wider range of high quality resources'. Another sought greater 'outreach to get more people involved and collaborating'. There was a call from another respondent for 'greater support from senior researchers'. Two commentators from different universities wanted 'further support for developing budgets for grant applications' and 'more support for the key elements of an application, for example, budget and evaluation' respectively. Towards the end of the development cycle are requests concerning 'more detailed assistance with reviewing grant submissions' and using peer review 'more systematically'.