Hi, I have been nominated for an ESRC Open Competition place and am filling in my J-es form at the moment.

On the form it has a 'Project Summary' section, which allows 4,000 characters. I was wondering what needs to be included in this?

Also, does the 2 page limit for the attached proposal include references?

Any insights will be very gratefully appreciated. Thanks

======= Date Modified 06 15 2009 09:15:43 =======
Hi there,

I have applied for +3 funding in a different department from that in which I am doing my MA (MA in sociology dept, application in social policy dept.). I received a phone call last night saying that I had an interview in the social policy department today.

The graduate secretary who called me was not specific about it at all- just that the panel would comprise my supervisor and another bloke who works in the same area.

I was just wondering what is this interview likely to be? I doubt it is 'the' PhD interview which decides who gets the quota funding, otherwise why would my supervisor (who is not involved in funding allocation decisions AT ALL, owing to her being in a separate research unit) be there? And why would it be arranged at 6.30pm the night before, surely they would have a set date for shortlist candidates interviews? I'm guessing that it could be a chance for the bloke who will be there to meet me if he is wanting to be involved in the project (I have had a lot of issues with sueprvision because my supervisor is part of a separate research unit who don't usually take on PhD students), but if this is the case then the graduate secretary's use of the terms 'interview' and 'panel' seems slightly too formal. Moreove, if it is just a chance for him to meet me and see if he is happy to take me on and supervise me, why is it being arranged via the graduate secretary (why not personally as this is the way all my previous meetings within this department have been arranged)? So, if it isn't 'the' interview, then what will it entail? What format is it likely to take?

As you can tell, I am quite confused about what the interview entails so any light that anyone can shed on this will be very much appreciated.

My timetable was much more detailed than the one I pasted into the original post, but I cut it down as far as I possibly could because of the word limitations.

A Gantt chart would take it over the limit. It can only be two pages of prose and one page for references. After having removed the timetable and jiggling around with a few heading etc. I have made it JUST fit on to two pages and I have now sent that off to my supervisor to have a look at before I submit next week.

Thank you.

I did think it was somewhat unnecessary but timetables also seemed to be rather ubiqitous! However, I have now removed it once and for all.

Hi,
I am writing a proposal for +3 funding and I have put a timetable like this in it,

Timetable: The three years of the research will be structured as follows,

Year one: Literature review, demographic profiling, secure research participants.

Year two: Analysis of quantitative, conduction of semi-structured interviews, coding using Atlast.ti.

Year three: Complete data analysis, update literature review, write-up, disseminate findings.


I am now having to cut down the proposal to fit with my department's strict length limitations.
My supervisor has suggested ditching the timetable. However, I put a timetable on my 1+3 application last year (I had to pull this application so I have no idea if it would have been successful!) and the example of a successful +3 proposal that I have been given has a timetable on as well.

How important is the timetable to a proposal? Should I just ditch it? Or leave it in and cut down my word somewhere else?

Any advice is very much appreciated. Thanks