Sunday, March 14, 2021

The role of writing applications in the research process

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an application to the Swedish Research Council. I wasn’t the only one doing so. This time of year, there are many PhDs writing applications. Around 10–15 percent of these will be successful. This usually means 3 years of research at 75 percent of a full-time salary. For people at an early stage in their career without a permanent position – such as me – these funds are often crucial with regard to whether or not they have a job. But even for people with a permanent position, receiving funding may be crucial. In fact, senior lecturers without external funding rarely have time to engage in as much research as they would like. 

Against this background, voices are raised every year that the system represents a huge waste of resources. Why should all academics write applications in January, February and March? Wouldn’t it be more beneficial if they instead spent all this time doing research? Imagine the amount of research we could benefit from! 

I understand these thoughts. But I don’t really agree. I consider writing applications an important and rewarding part of the research process. In fact, I consider writing applications as stage three of a total of six stages. My line of thinking goes something like this. 

The first stage of the research process is the curiosity phase. In this phase, you for some reason become interested in something and realize that you want to know more about it. Perhaps even research it. Curiosity may be aroused by experiences, conversations, reading, teaching or just about anything. If it persists for a while, it may be worthwhile moving forward. 

The second phase is the orientation phase. Here, you review what others have written about the phenomenon, locate and visit archives, find possible source materials and discuss your vague ideas with others. The curiosity and orientation phases may last for years before you proceed. My interest in what I’m currently applying for was aroused in 2016. Research takes time. 

The third stage, the application phase, concerns transforming curiosity and orientation into one or more projects. My approach is typically to start by applying for smaller funds to carry out pilot studies and prepare larger applications. Swedish historians are privileged in this regard. There are many Swedish foundations from which you may apply for small and medium-sized funding. This is not at all the case in, for example, Denmark and Norway. 

In Sweden, there are roughly two windows, one at the beginning of the spring semester and one at the beginning of the fall semester. Here, you may apply for amounts that may secure your salary for three or four months. Decisions are usually communicated at the end of the same semester as the application is submitted. For me, these smaller funds have been absolutely crucial. Without these, I would have been out of the system and probably back in school. The thing is that at the Swedish Research Council, the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation and the other large funding bodies, my applications have yet to be successful. 

But is the application phase really to be seen as research? Yes, I would definitely argue that this is the case. It requires you to get a firmer grip on your thoughts, arguments and to get your research design down on paper. Research questions and objectives need to be formulated and specified. All this requires a closer reading of existing research in your chosen field. In addition, you need to get a firmer grip on the source material you’re planning to use. If you perform this work well, the following phases will be considerably easier. In certain environments other than academia, this is called frontloading. I find it very similar to prewriting. So yes, the application phase consists of substantial, difficult and valuable work. The fact that academics repeatedly need to engage in this does not represent a waste of resources. 

The fourth phase is a more intense research phase. This is characterized by a more focused pursuit of knowledge and actively working with source materials, but also an even closer reading of the research literature. One may also include seminar feedback, conference presentations and organizing workshops in this phase. Personally, I would argue that the fifth phase, the writing phase, is carried out in a symbiotic relationship with the fourth phase. At any rate, I don’t “carry out research” for a year and then write during the next year. Individual months may be devoted to one of the two activities, but the vast majority of time contains both. 

Finally, I would like to point out that there is a sixth phase in the research process that is sometimes forgotten. We may refer to this as the follow-up phase. The premise here is that it’s easier to be published than to be read. Yes, it actually takes a lot of work and quite some luck to get people to become seriously interested in what you have written. Research doesn’t simply circulate because it exists. No, if it really is to be part of a larger scholarly and/or public conversation – rather than a single cry in the desert – you need to put in both time and effort.

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