Funding focus (ii): how do I go about getting some of the funding available?

The second part of the Funding Focus concentrates on securing some of the funding available for postgraduate study

Having discussed the various institutions and areas that fund postgraduate study, we now look at how to access the funding available. Once again, we will concentrate on each of the different funding bodies to see the best ways of approaching this problem. Before considering this, however, it is worth nothing that being organised can often set you off on good footing: once you are sure of the postgraduate course you wish to undertake, find out when the financial arrangements need to be organised by and allow yourself an extraordinary amount of time to determine where your funding comes from. In most cases, the organisations we will discuss below will be large and hence unable to respond quickly — through no fault of their own — to any requests.

Research councils are the best-known source of funding, although — in order to secure money for postgraduate study, it is likely that you will not have to be in direct contact with the relevant council (depending on your subject area). For example, the EPSRC [1], has since October 2001 allocated "funding to university departments to fund doctoral students. Each allocation is directly related to the amount of EPSRC research income held by the department." In this case, the funding is known as a Doctoral Training Grant (DTG — sometimes known as a Doctoral Training Allowance). Thus, in order to secure funding, a potential student must speak with the relevant member of the deparment in order to determine what sort of funding might be available.

Each research council works in slightly different ways and, for some of them, direct applications must be made. These applications, as discussed in an article on education.guardian [2], normally consist of four sections, each with equal weighting. The first seciotn details qualifications and the second experience. The third section details the proposal for your study and is often written in conjunction with a potential supervisor, who can advsie which research coucnil it is best to submit your proposal to. The final section is the references section, of which two are normally required.

Applications from students with 2:1's are welcome, even though research councils can be "rigorous in their allocation of awards to students". It is a myth that only students with first class degrees go on to study at postgraduate level.

In the cases where individual institutions may have funding arrangements, such possibilities will normally be highlighted by the department/potential supervisor themselves. However, if nothing is mentioned, it is alwasy worth asking whether the university has any funds available for such purposes.

In the case of charities and trusts, "the standard way to apply for relatively large sums of money is through the institution, either by writing a research proposal or completing an application form with the aid of an experienced researcher (usually your potential supervisor).

"If you are after a smaller sum (for example to help with the cost of a masters course) you can often approach the charity or trust directly. The Grants Register (published by Palgrave Macmillan Ltd) [3] and the Directory of Grant Making Trusts (published by the Directory of Social Change) [4] are two excellent sources of major charities." [5]

Funding from employers is very much dependent on the employer and general guidelines seem to be hard to come by. However, a hybrid sort of funding has been established between research councils and industry, known as CASE (collaborative) studentships. Information on these can be found here [6].

Sources:

[1] EPSRC
[2] Researching the funding options - education.guardian
[3] The Grants Register
[4] Directory of Grant-making Trusts
[5] If they can get funded so can you - education.guardian
[6] EPSRC - industrial CASE