IRCSET EMBARK Scheme

GuanYin

Ok, now I'm angry.

I just sat through a presentation by Martin Clyne of IRCSET profiling the application procedure for grants and our research group will be taking on some postgrads this year so I went along to have a look.

I have never seen such hypocritical tripe in my life.

Here is the blurb for the scheme:

"Embark takes a unique approach to funding people and ideas, providing direct financial support for researchers & research students. Its programmes do not target research projects with an industrial or economic focus but instead aim to support researchers in exploring ideas and bringing vision to reality.

Problem 1: "funding people and ideas"

The programme openly admits that it usually only accepts 1st class honours students and indeed only 22 out of the 219 postgrads funded have a 2.1

There are many problems with this. Firstly a first class honour degree bears no reflection on a persons ability to be a sucessful researcher. There is no link, zero. In fact, many of the first class honours students I have met in my career have suffered as they find the nature of research frustrating. The ability to memorise and regurgitate ideas (which is one hugely sucessful way to obtain a 1.1) does not mean these people have the ability for lateral thinking, initiative or independence in a laboratory.

On top of this, the programme is immediately biasing against students from disadvantaged backgrounds, as, many reports have shown, these students are more likely to take part time jobs which detract from their academic achievements.

How can these people really know if a person is suitable and "likely to succeed" (the term used in classification of candidates) on the basis of a 1.1 degree, a personal statement and a referee? They basically decided to cop out of an interview (or as I prefer informal chats myself) system which is the only way to assess someones suitability for postgraduate research.

I could go on about this, but I want to enjoy my evening.

Problem 2: "Its programmes do not target research projects with an industrial or economic focus"

The total grant per student is about 19,000, with 12,700 for the student, 3500 for fees and travel which leaves approx 3,000 or less for consumable and running the research project. No given that a PC costs about a grand, how far do you see the streaching for a years research?

IRCSET's response? We envisage that the laboratories will have previous block funding to cover bench fees (ie. running the lab).
But if you have this block funding, you most likely have money for a postgrad, so why bother applying? The smaller labs can't afford to run a psotgrad without bench fees, and the larger labs have the money anyway?

So again, IRCSET are giving more money to the larger labs, who don't need it. I did my time in a small poorly funded environment and really, this country puts all its eggs in one basket with funding, it means that while the small labs toil away, the big labs send 7 postgrads off to conference that they barely attend in favour of going on the piss. agghhh......

I better stop before I burst something.....


Folks, if applying for one of these, be sure that your supervisor knows exactly whats involved.....

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