A query...

[Daniel L. Everett]

Miriam,

Interesting take on the size of UK grants. I guess some of this has  
to do with experience. Maybe NSF grants have gotten somewhat larger  
over the past few years.

I served on the AHRC funding reform panel and had grants with the  
ESRC and AHRC far in excess of anything I have had from the NSF (I  
have had NSF funding for most of the past 22 years and have mainly  
had grants that fall within what I was once informed to be the  
'normal' range for linguistics, i.e. below 300,000 for three years).

The UK granting agencies let you know what the percentage of  
applicants receiving grants that year was. I was told by both ESRC  
and AHRC that about 26% of applicants received funding, so this  
accords with what you say. I would say that that is likely better  
than the NSF. (Paul Chapin has an excellent book from CUP on NSF  
grants.)

Most universities in the US and UK will pay (out of central  
university funds) for their faculty to visit the relevant funding  
agencies and discuss projects with them. And in the US at least NSF  
representatives have been very helpful in discussing proposals with  
folks at the LSA annual meetings. I am sure that they are well aware  
of the need for more funds for 'proper archiving' of field data.

Dan



On Oct 25, 2006, at 5:50 AM, Miriam Meyerhoff wrote:

> Dear Dan,
>
>> In fact, there in Scotland you have access to research grants that  
>> far exceed the grants available to linguists from the NSF by and  
>> large.
>
> I'm grateful to Dan for opening up the discussion beyond the US (I  
> restricted my comments yesterday to the NSF, since at that point  
> the contributors were all US-based).
>
> The position of British funding agencies such as AHRC and ESRC  
> (and, I believe, also the Canadian SSHRC) is that data collected  
> using public money is a public asset, i.e. open access, *SUBJECT  
> TO* the usual restrictions re. confidentiality etc., etc., based on  
> individual researcher's agreements with the people they are recording.
>
> As far as the question of who has access to more dosh is concerned:  
> This is an interesting question, since the average size of the  
> grants to academics on the three links you provided seems very  
> similar. My impression (based on my own limited experience) is not  
> the researchers are more likely to get large sums in the UK, but  
> that the success rate for grant submissions is perhaps higher (c.  
> 1:4 applications funded; I'm not sure what the ratio is for the NSF).
>
> chrz, mm
> -- 
>
> Miriam Meyerhoff
> Professor of Sociolinguistics
> Linguistics & English Language
> University of Edinburgh
> 14 Buccleuch Place
> Edinburgh EH8 9LN
> SCOTLAND, UK
>
> ph. +44 131 651-1836 (direct line); 650-3628 or 651-1842 (main office)
> fax: +44 131 650-6883
>
> http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~mhoff/

**********************
Daniel L. Everett, Professor of Linguistics & Anthropology and Chair,
Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Campus Box 4300
Illinois State University
Normal, Illinois 61790-4300
OFFICE: 309-438-3604
FAX: 309-438-8038
Dept: http://www.llc.ilstu.edu/default.asp
Recursion: http://www.llc.ilstu.edu/rechul/
Personal: http://www.llc.ilstu.edu/dlevere/

and

Honorary Professor of Linguistics
University of Manchester
Manchester, UK