Demand management has been a frequent topic on this blog and in many discussions at the University since the publication of the Research Council’s Delivery Plans at the beginning of the year. In April I drew your attention to the ESRC’s programme of measures and forthcoming consultation on demand management options to address their increasing number of applications – over the past five years the ESRC has seen a 33 per cent increase in grant applications and a success rate of 16 per cent.
The consultation, which took place over the summer, offered four main options to address the issue: individual researcher sanctions, institutional sanctions, institutional quotas and charging for the submission of applications and the results were published on the 25th October. Of the four options proposed in the consultation, more than two thirds of respondents favoured individual researcher sanctions.
Individual, Institutional and Learned Society Response to Demand Management options
| Researcher Sanctions | Institutional Quotas | Institutional Sanctions | Charging | None of the Proposed | |
| Individuals | 44% | 20% | 4% | 0% | 32% |
| Institutions | 82% | 9% | 11% | 5% | 0% |
| Learned Societies and other Agencies | 80% | 0% | 0% | 20% | 0% |
| All Respondants | 68% | 12% | 9% | 3% | 11% |
The EPSRC have already adopted individual sanctions as a way of addressing the need for demand management. Under the EPSRC regulations any applicant who has (a) submitted three or more proposals in the previous 24 months which have been rejected or ranked in the bottom half of a panel, or (b) had a success rate of less than 25 per cent in the past 24 months from submitting further applications for 12 months. These measures have worked well for the EPSRC, with success rates increasing from 26 per cent in 2008-9 to 36 per cent in 2010-11.
The proposed sanctions from the ESRC go further than those imposed by the EPSRC, and would see the council banning any researcher who had two unsuccessful outline or full proposals in 24 months which failed to reach an alpha grade equivalent from submitting further applications for 12 months. Failed applications would also be counted against both principal investigators and co-investigators, and a sanctioned researcher would be banned from submitting any applications as either a principal investigator or co-investigator over the next 12-month period.
Currently the ESRC are not looking to take any further steps to introduce sanctions. In June the council introduced a number of changes to existing peer review practises and submission policies to help reduce the pressure on resources, and it is hoped that these changes along with self regulation from the research community will be enough reduce demand.
Full details on the consultation and its outcomes can be found on the ESRC’s website.