Changes to distribution of funding alerts

Following a recent review of the usage of our funding opportunities database, Research Professional, which included an administrators’ questionnaire in November and a survey of academic staff in January, the Research Office will be amending its current method of distributing funding alerts. In summary, the findings highlighted the need for more targeted but less frequent email alerts, preferably weekly rather than daily.

In addition to this, our current administrator who emails these alerts is leaving the Research Operations Office to take up a promotion in MISD, so therefore from 16^th April there will be a change in the process of disseminating funding opportunities from the Research Operations Office to Departments. The Research Strategy Office will temporarily take over emailing alerts, but will be collating all new funding opportunities into a weekly summary with less detail, rather than sending individual, detailed emails on a daily basis. Although the level of detail will be reduced, there will be links to the main web pages to access further details if required. The funding calls calendar which has been maintained on the Research Operations Office web page will also not continue in its current format.

We are also considering increasing the level of subscription to Research Professional to include a comprehensive facility for more targeted email alerts controlled at Departmental level and to provide access to overseas funding opportunities and news items. This function on the higher level of access will allow departmental administrators to set up local, discipline- or theme-specific groups to create much more targeted email alerts. These will take a little setting up initially, but will ensure that only relevant funding opportunities are alerted to group members. Individuals can choose to be in as many groups as they wish.

After the implementation of the higher level of access and devolved group management, the Research Strategy Office will continue to monitor restricted calls, issuing guidance and coordinating the internal selection process.

A demonstration of the enhanced level of access to Research Professional will take place on 22^nd May at the RGUG meeting and all Departmental Administrators are strongly encouraged to attend. More details will be circulated over the coming weeks and training will be available in summer for those wishing to take full advantage of the increased level of service offered by the upgrade.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact your Assistant Director or Research Support Manager in the Research Operations Office.