Who funds us?
From Scratchpad
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[edit] Who funds us?
Nobody, at the moment! We received an initial sum of £2000 from RCUK to fund a meeting on the 22nd June at UCL and are now deciding how to apply for funds which will allow us to set up a sustainable organization. Funding is a major concern and is one of our priorities. The options, summarized from the 22nd June minutes, are shown in the box below:
We'll consider each of these in turn.
[edit] Grant funding bodies
A variety of bodies provide small grants for the sort of thing we're doing. Our initial focus should simply be a pragmatic one and, since the largest number of Research Staff are in the biomedical sector, we should target Biomedical groups who have an interest in Research Staff careers, such as the Wellcome Trust.
[edit] Royal Society of Chemistry
This is being looked at by NAME OF MEMBER.
We've been in touch with the RSC and have had the following email, which is certainly worth following up. Anybody interested?
Dear John I met with some of your colleagues early in June regarding the possibility of a national postdoc association in the UK and just wondered how things were going with its formation. I’m interested from two points – firstly I work with a lot of postdocs on a one-to-one basis discussing their career options and it would be useful to suggest the existence of such an organisations and secondly, with my colleague Dr Jo Tunney, the RSC has budgeted for some small pilot events for postdocs in 2007 and so would be interested in collaborating if possible with the association if it is established. Any information that you have would be great and I look forward to hearing from you. Best wishes, Caroline Tolond MChem QCG Dip.RSA MRSC
[edit] New Phytologist Trust
This is being looked at by NAME OF MEMBER.
The New Phytologist Trust is a botanical trust, but they also give out small educational grants of up to ca. £2000 and have shown interest.
[edit] Royal Society
This is being looked at by NAME OF MEMBER.
On the grounds that The Royal Society fund most research-related stuff, they may be worth a try. I've put feelers out to them and they're tentatively supportive.
[edit] Leverhulme Trust
This is being looked at by NAME OF MEMBER.
We haven't approached The Leverhulme Trust yet, but they may be a possibility.
[edit] Wellcome Trust
This is being looked at by NAME OF MEMBER.
We haven't approached The Wellcome Trust either, but again they may be a possibility.
[edit] AMRC
This is being looked at by NAME OF MEMBER.
The Wellcome Trust is also a member of the Association of Medical Research Charities so we may need to go through them. Don't know.
[edit] Rowntree Trusts
This is being looked at by NAME OF MEMBER.
There are several Rowntree trusts: Rowntree web portal
[edit] Seedcorn funding
This is being looked at by NAME OF MEMBER.
For interested, non-grant funding bodies, we need to identify potential ‘seedcorn’ sponsors. We must contact a core group of sponsors and discuss how we align with each sponsor’s priorities and how we will further their objectives. If we look at who funds most researchers or has interests that tie in, this group would include the Research Councils, AMRC, Leverhulme, Rowntree Trust, etc. The US NPA gets around £200 K per year from this sort of funding.
[edit] Individual subscriptions
This is being looked at by NAME OF MEMBER.
While these are a possibility (the US NPA sets Individual costs of £20 per person), it’s difficult for individuals to see any immediate benefits or incentives, so this sort of income should be delayed until we really get up and running.
[edit] Roberts funding
This is being looked at by John Bothwell.
It might be possible to get Research Institutes to pay a ‘Head Tax’ out of their Roberts money. This would be a big step and would require a lot of people to agree (the Reseach Councils and so on). This would, however, be some way down the line.
[edit] Integration of Local and national associations
Would we rather have the bulk of the fundraising done by local associations which then pay a tithe to support a national association (along the lines of the US NPA), would we rather see a national association which generates income to distribute to local associations (like a grant funding body), or would we rather keep local and national associations financially separate?
[edit] References
