Many aspects of the InFrame project were designed with strong intent to improve research cultures through our own daily approaches and decisions. From our recruitment process (sharing questions in advance) to the creation of posts designed to support people most effectively, we are determined to walk the walk from day zero.

With the timings and process for the InFrame Research Culture Catalyst Fund announced (see our sway page) for the application documents and contacts), we have an additional opportunity which chimes with these intentions.

We want to invite you to apply to observe our Peer Review and Decision Panels in April and May 2025. This blog sets out how this will work and why you should consider investing a little time now, for a potential big return when you next apply for any class of funding. This offer is open to ANYONE, in any job family at our three partner institutions. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t applied for funding before and you don’t need to be an academic or researcher. Funders are being increasingly open-minded and inclusive about who can lead on project proposals and this is a low risk way to learn about the process. Similarly, there are also an increasing number of opportunities to take part in panels which can be really intimidating if you haven’t seen one before. Our observer post is designed to build your confidence and encourage you to put yourself forward the next time you see a call for proposals, panel members or reviewers.

If I’ve already convinced you, you can apply to be an observer using the expression of interest form. The application is brief and the information we’re collecting is all part of our mission to better understand the people in our research environment. Don’t worry if your motivation to apply is “curiosity” and you don’t have any ideas about how you’ll share what you’ll learn. We’ll take you through a short briefing before the panels meet to help you get the most from them.

Observers will play no part in the panel. Mics and cameras will be off and you won’t be able to turn them on or contribute. You won’t see the applications – you’ll be observing the panel discussion and decisions. After the panel we’ll hold a debrief meeting so you can discuss what you’ve seen and seek clarification about anything you’ve seen or heard.

If you aren’t sure this is for you, here are my top three reasons to come and watch.

1. What you learn is Transferable

2. Panels are People

3. Communication is about what’s received, not transmitted

With a background in researcher development, my first experience of panels was a workshop with the School of Physics and Astronomy about 15 years ago. With support from senior staff I ran a mock panel with a room of observers. The most avid observer was me – I learnt a huge amount about the mechanics of a panel, how vital it is to be able to quickly extract information from complex documents, how closely the assessment criteria were followed and also how leadership and competence was judged. When I started work at the University I started applying for my own funding, despite being in a professional services role and therefore ineligible as an investigator. But as Katharine Hepburn once said, “If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun” and we managed to resolve that barrier and lobbied for it to be removed. Happily many funders now have more enlightened views about who can be an investigator.

My first experience of a real panel was at the “hard end” as an applicant, preceded by weeks of preparation, mock interviews, question guessing and rehearsing how we’d present the dynamics of our team, taking invaluable advice from generous colleagues. Obviously I learnt a huge amount by “doing” and realised that the learning from the mock panel years earlier was coming through. Observing our panels will give you insights into how funding decisions are made and the debrief session will be designed to help you think about how to approach future proposals with this learning in mind.

My second insight was that the kind of people who made up the panels were very familiar. They were mostly senior academics and leaders in research and innovation. People I worked with all the time at Edinburgh. I started to pay more attention to their perceptions of leadership and competence – what evidence convinced them you could be trusted to deliver on your beautiful idea? Again, in the intervening years funders have become more engaged in the fairness and inclusion of panels, and equipped with DORA and EDI principles there is more attention paid to these interpretations of leadership. Those of you familiar with the wider InFrame project will know that we are determined to contribute to these definitions, and we’ll be approaching you again early next year to contribute to this work. Observers will see how our panels apply our funding criteria, what convinces them to support an idea and what is missing from proposals that aren’t supported.

Finally, my experience of running mock interviews panels (something that I do regularly to support colleagues who will face a panel interview) has taught me that what you write needs to clearly spell out what you mean. Don’t assume that the reader understands why your work is important, who will benefit from it, why you are the best person to do it. Applicants get a right to reply at the peer review stage of an application and if there’s an interview, you’ll be able to address any misinterpretation of core ideas, but if the only thing in the room is the proposal, it needs to be unambiguous. Watching a panel discuss the meaning of something that the writer will have been confident was perfectly clear is a real learning moment.

These reflections are based on my own experiences of observing panels (mock and actual) over the last 10 years. I’m convinced that understanding the dynamics and processes of funding decisions has helped me write more compelling bids. Creating observer places for all our funding panels was one of the early promises we made as a writing team when we devised our project and approaches in early 2023. Help us keep it!

Written by: Sara Shinton, Director, Future Leaders Fellows Development Network, Director, ESRC Research Leaders Network, Institutional Lead*, Wellcome InFrame Institutional Research Culture Change Project, Lead Consultant, UKRI Research Leaders Symposia.

Adapted blog post from Edinburgh Research Office: HUBsite for the Research Community on 18 December 2024