There are a wide variety of outputs available on Figshare from research data, figures, and code to presentations, posters, and reports. One increasingly common output on Figshare is grant proposals — both successful and unsuccessful. The following are a few examples of grant proposals from a variety of research areas that have been uploaded to Figshare.
Dr. Lauren Gawne
Lauren is a Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at La Trobe University. In 2018, Lauren uploaded her Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Research Award (DECRA) application to Figshare. While it wasn’t funded, Lauren invested several years into the application and wanted to share it with others, especially other early career researchers. By uploading the application to OPAL, La Trobe University’s instance of Figshare, Lauren can get credit for her application regardless of its success.
“I'm glad that my school at La Trobe is planning to acknowledge time spent applying, not just success, because you can do everything right and still not be funded,” said Lauren. “We need to stop framing this as a failure of researchers.”
Fernando is a Distinguished Researcher at the University of Alicante where he leads the Dryland Ecology and Global Change Lab. Fernando has been uploading his research data to Figshare since 2012 but he recently uploaded two successful and unsuccessful European Research Council (ERC) grant applications to Figshare in the hope of helping other researchers in their pursuit of funding.
“I wanted to share these proposals to be of help to others,” said Fernando. “I think it’s very important to share our failures because in academia, we often only see the success. It takes bravery but it’s really helpful for others.”
Maestre, Fernando T. (2021): ERC Starting Grant proposal "Biotic community attributes and ecosystem functioning: implications for predicting and mitigating global change impacts (BIOCOM)". figshare. Online resource. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.14633289
Maestre, Fernando T. (2021): ERC Starting Grant proposal (not funded) "Biotic community attributes and ecosystem functioning: implications for predicting and mitigating global change impacts (BIOCHANGE)". figshare. Online resource. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.14694549
Dr. Petr Čermák
Petr is a researcher in Condensed Matter Physics at the Materials Growth & Measurement Laboratory (MGML). Petr has been uploading his research data in Figshare since 2017 but has recently created a collection of grant applications, both successful and unsuccessful.
“I think that even unsuccessful applications could be helpful for others, especially with the evaluation report,” said Petr. “After my StG ERC was rejected, I applied for a similar call for Czech Science Foundation which was successful. In addition to dissemination and helping others, it’s also a joy to fulfil the objectives in the original proposal.”
