Dr Madeleine Beveridge is a Research Development Manager, specialising in facilitating interdisciplinary research, from idea generating workshops to word count edits on the final bid. The session below was co-organised with Dr Rachel Chin, a Researcher Development Specialist supporting Writing and Communication, alongside her academic role as a Lecturer in War Studies (History).
Many funding calls increasingly require complex, interdisciplinary teams. Writing these applications involves navigating multiple knowledge bases and writing styles. In November 2024, we hosted an online discussion to share insights from researchers at the University of Glasgow, who have applied successfully for large-scale interdisciplinary funding. Nicki Whitehouse, Professor of Archaeological Science, leads a Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Network developing interdisciplinary approaches to understanding traditional crop cultivation practices, cultural heritage and sustainable living. Simone Stumpf, Professor of Responsible and Interactive AI, leads a multi-disciplinary team, of 20 academics, from seven universities, as part of a £3.5M project on participatory auditing of AI to assess potential harms. In this blog we outline the core themes and learning that emerged from these conversations.
The role of the Principal Investigator (PI)
Nicki and Simone agreed that it’s crucial for the PI to set a clear direction from the outset. A coherent narrative or ‘golden thread’ is key to most successful bids, whereas writing by committee can dilute that narrative and lead to confusion. For this reason, as PIs, our speakers found that it was more effective for them to draft a skeleton of the initial proposal.
Interdisciplinary research – by definition – needs to integrate multiple perspectives. Writing the first draft doesn’t mean owning of all the ideas (there are individual fellowships for that). Our speakers invested large amounts of time in regular online and in person group meetings, one to one conversations, emails, and shared documents.
After the initial draft, how can others contribute to the writing? One convened a subset of colleagues as a Core Writing Group, who took responsibility for filling gaps and checking the accuracy of sections where the PI was less of an expert. Another gave everyone a few days for comments and then took the document offline while deciding how to integrate the feedback. Both Nicki and Simone stressed that this was an iterative process with multiple rounds of writing and revision, and that it was important to be very clear what you want feedback on and by when. If delegating sections (e.g. details of a work package or methodology), provide a template to make it easier to integrate later.
Addressing disciplinary differences
A key challenge in interdisciplinary writing is navigating the different languages and concepts that people bring. You’ll need to work at developing a shared understanding of what people mean by specific terms and vocabulary and then decide how to reflect these differences in the proposal (remembering that it’s likely to read by someone who is an expert in yet another discipline). If team members use language in different ways, how do you select which terms to use without creating a hierarchy suggesting that one usage is ‘correct’? Here our speakers stressed the importance of really taking time to work through these differences, which is one reason why pre-existing / longer-term collaborations can be so useful. Disciplines may also have different expectations for publications and conferences, so a strong recommendation in planning the project is to try to make sure that all team members will benefit from the project in a way that supports their own disciplinary trajectory.
Building your team: trust and networks
Doing interdisciplinary research necessitates having a wider team, but how do you identify who to work with? The importance of trust came out strongly. Choosing to work with a mixture of existing collaborators and newer contacts who were personally recommended by others they knew well worked well.
Trust matters because you need to be confident that your collaborators can advise accurately on areas where you are less familiar. You’re not an expert in everything (that’s why you are part of an interdisciplinary team), and for some sections you’ll need to rely on others to explain a particular concept, approach, or method. On a purely practical level, you also want people who will complete the tasks needed to get the bid submitted on time.
Remember, there’s a danger your bid will be successful! So, you also want to build a team that you’ll actually enjoy working being part of for several years. Building a network in advance of going in on a large collaborative bid can be really valuable. Previous collaborations – from small pots of internal funding, or unsuccessful applications – can help identify who you work well with, and who you might prefer to avoid. Both of our experts drew on the ideas and networks from previously rejected bids when building their successful applications.
Saying no
Sometimes the issue isn’t finding collaborators but turning them down. The list of disciplines you could choose from is, if not actually infinite, very long. As noted by our speakers, colleagues will often invite their colleagues too, in the spirit of collegiality. But the budgets involved are not unlimited; often, they’re not much bigger than funding for single discipline work. Meanwhile, you need to ensure there is enough funding for research assistants, equipment, and other costs.
Unfortunately, this is sometimes going to mean saying “no” to fantastic people. Where this becomes tricky is if there is no budget for someone who thinks they will be getting two research assistants and 20% of their salary, so be as transparent as possible when approaching people about potential collaborations.
Use internal resources
The nature of interdisciplinary bid writing can mean some aspects of writing the grant take longer, while funder deadlines can be shorter than other individual schemes. In this context, it’s important not to overlook internal resources. Make sure your line manager knows about your application, and double check for any internal funding (e.g. for in-person meetings or research assistants). Both speakers highly recommended getting examples of successful applications. As a Research Development Specialist, I am contractually obliged to tell you to contact your College Research Office as early as possible to benefit from their support – ranging from navigating the application process including internal deadlines, eligibility and scheme guidance, to full support with costings and finance approvals, and additional input on narrative clarity and framing, bringing in potential partners, and achieving that coherent “golden thread”.
‘Yes, and’
My first draft of this blog closed with: “Writing an interdisciplinary grant proposal is a complex but rewarding process”. My second draft has one key change: it’s complex and rewarding. These things are not in tension with one another. Our speakers enjoy interdisciplinary research because it is complex, because it allows them to address a problem from multiple perspectives, to reflect on different ways of doing things, to cross-pollinate ideas, and to practice saying ‘yes, and’ rather than ‘no, but’. And as they noted, people who like to do interdisciplinary work tend to attract others who like it too.
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