Being able to attract funding is a major factor in determining success in academia. While selection processes were introduced to help distribute money fairly, the current system is flawed: 1) applying for funding is time-consuming, 2) funding agencies prioritise research areas without involving early-career researchers, and 3) the selection process is unconsciously biased. Hence, there is a need to re-evaluate how funding is distributed.

How could a Fair Funding Framework be structured? Listen as postdocs within the field of diabetes and an expert discuss the challenges and possible solutions.

Fair Funding Framework: The Fair Funding Framework is part of the solution proposed by the challenge group to provide a set of guidelines for funding bodies to make funding application and review processes fair and to promote standardization. In the podcast episode, the group provides the details of the framework.

Episode info

Postdocs

• Hermina Jakupovic, PhD student, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

• Hande Topel Batarlar, Postdoc, University of Southern Denmark 

• Expert
  Allan Flyvbjerg, CEO of the Steno Diabetes Center in Copenhagen; Chair of the Board of the Danish Diabetes Academy; Clinical Professor at the University of Copenhagen 

• Host
  Gretchen Repasky, Communications Director, Nordic EMBL Partnership for Molecular Medicine and University of Helsinki

The postdocs represent the challenge group of

• Ben Stocks, Postdoc, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

• Claire Lyons, Postdoc, Lund University, Sweden

• Erin Brown, Postdoc, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

• Julie Abildgaard, Postdoc, TrygFondens Center for Aktiv Sundhed, Denmark

• Lars Jorge Díaz, Statistician, Steno Diabetes Center Copenhagen

• Sam Scott, Postdoc, University of Bern, Switzerland

Publisher

Danish Diabetes Academy

Producer

Kontekst & Lyd

Resource list

• PhD funding as a determinant of PhD and career research performance, Horta 2018: 
  https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2016.1185406

• The Way We Ask for Money… The Emergence and Institutionalization of Grant Writing Practices in Academia, Velarde 2018:
  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-018-9346-4 

• Contest models highlight inherent inefficiencies of scientific funding competitions, Gross 2019: 
  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000065 

• Measuring bias, burden and conservatism in research funding processes, Guthrie 2019: 
  https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.19156.1

• Science funders gamble on grant lotteries, Adam 2019:
  http://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03572-7 

• Ten simple rules to initiate and run a postdoctoral association, Bruckmann 2017:
  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005664