Aligning research projects to scale up

I have recently been applying to more calls for proposals than in the past – partially because I am developing a new research line in Ecuador, and I can use all the financial contributions to buy the necessary equipment.

For my small projects, I applied for different topics for every call in the past. As such, I could expand my research portfolio. During that time, I did one project at a time in Ecuador, and one or two projects in the Netherlands.

However, as my career has progressed, I have more projects and require more projects to fund my research group. I have broad research interests and I want to do All The Things.

But, doing all the things gets confusing and inefficient at times, and makes you feel pulled into all directions.

And thus, I have consolidated my research lines in Ecuador into development and application of new concrete materials (with a focus on natural fiber concrete) and monitoring and modeling of existing concrete bridges.

For the first research line, our main project is an MSCA staff exchanges project. To be able to participate with experimental work from our side, we have applied to smaller internal funding to be able to get laboratory assistants and buy materials, make mixes, and do experiments. Since the MSCA project is four years, that means we have applied already a number of times to projects to keep the moment moving forward.

For the second research line, I am just getting started so that I can purchase monitoring equipment for our research group. We got internal funding to get started with some international collaborators on the project, we won a seed fund from the Hemispheric Universities Consortium, and are now scaling up to apply for larger national funding to collaborate with other universities in the country, and get international participation as well.

So, my approach to the proposals is more strategic, which each of these building on the previous ones, so that ultimately in the future I can perhaps achieve on of the topics I identify as the impact and legacy I would like to have nationally. At the same time, we are scaling up the proposals; from the internal funding, to a seed fund, to -hopefully- national and international funding to push this research line forward.

Do you have a strategic plan for the proposals you write?