4. Planning a full application
Have you been awarded a planning grant? Or given the go-ahead by the Managing Director to submit a full proposal directly? If so, your idea has the potential to be developed into an interesting programme proposal to Mistra. To achieve that goal, you now have before you an exciting but demanding process of planning. Developing a full application for programme funding requires a substantial collaborative effort and considerable commitment.PLANNING A FULL APPLICATION
Your full application has to demonstrate that you meet all the defined criteria for a Mistra programme. You therefore need to describe in very tangible terms how your vision for your programme proposal satisfies these criteria. See the sections above on Mistra´s criteria and on creating a vision for your Mistra programme. As has already been pointed out, dialogue and collaboration are vital in the planning process. Researchers from different disciplines, and both researchers and users, need to work together to develop the full proposal. That means spending a great deal of time together. During the planning phase you will normally have an interim programme board, consisting of intended users of the results of the research (see above). This body has a key part to play in planning the full application, not least in terms of ensuring that the programme is of value to users. The type of user community envisaged will affect what issues are of particular importance to you when planning your application:
Is your goal commercial development and are your users in industry? Then you will need to consider what requirements that entails. How is the intended product or service to be placed on the market once it is developed, and what stakeholders need to be involved during the life of the programme if that is to happen? You also need to review the intellectual property issues involved. If your proposal is dependent on existing rights and patents being available to you, it is important to clarify questions of ownership before you submit a full programme proposal to Mistra.
Is your aim to produce scientific data that will provide a basis for international negotiations or other international or national decision making? If so, you will need to consider what the relevant political agenda and timetable look like. When, where and how can your scientific data contribute to the process? What stakeholders need to be involved in the programme to enable this to happen?
Are you hoping to deliver scientific data that will support sustainable management of natural resources? In that case, you will need to think about what stakeholders you wish to reach and what you need to do to get your message across to them. Is there a small group of key individuals, e.g. decision makers, whom you need to reach? Do you need to engage with a larger group of users, and if so, through what channels? Do you need to reach a wide range of different user groups, and if so, how can that be organized? What individuals need to participate in the programme for this to succeed?
Are you aiming at any other group of users? Think through in the same way who you need to reach and how you can reach them. How and when can you make a contribution to what they are doing to promote sustainable development? What individuals do you need to involve in the programme in order to succeed?
Remember that, unlike a planning grant application, a full application has to be well developed and specific as regards the scientific theory, research design and methods involved. This is very important for the international scientific peer review to which all full proposals are submitted. If the members of your applicant group are not used to collaborating with one another, it is important to set aside sufficient time to work towards a shared and very tangible definition of scientific issues and approaches. Mistra has found from experience that social scientists and researchers in the humanities are often particularly unaccustomed to working together in large groups to develop concrete descriptions of the theory, research design and methods they plan to employ. Bear in mind that your joint proposal and all its component parts should have the same degree of scientific clarity as a research plan which you develop on your own. In your full application, you are required to define the planned ‘deliverables´ of the programme.
By ‘planned deliverables´, Mistra means the ‘products´ of your research, which will be utilized by other researchers and/or the intended users. A scientific deliverable may, for example, be an article in a journal, a book, a model, or a synthesis of existing knowledge in a particular field. PhDs and licentiates are also scientific deliverables. A user deliverable may consist, for instance, of scientific data for use in international environmental negotiations, an accessible synthesis of current knowledge about how a natural resource can be managed, a prototype or a test programme for assessing toxicity. To ensure that user deliverables are actually put to practical use, it is important to involve the intended users in the planning of programme deliverables.
As described above, a Mistra programme has a particular organizational structure. It is managed by a programme board, comprising representatives of the intended users of the research results. Even at the planning stage, the applicant group has an interim programme board. The composition of the programme board is designed to ensure that the point of view of the user receives active attention throughout the life of the programme. A programme manager oversees the operational aspects of the programme - across the boundaries between research and practice, and between different disciplines. He or she is a key figure in ensuring that the programme achieves its objectives. Being the manager of a Mistra programme is generally a full-time job.
Who is the most suitable candidate to take on the challenging task of leading your group? Your full application should include an itemized draft budget. Remember that a certain proportion of the programme´s funding should initially be unassigned, to make it possible at a later stage to undertake activities which prove important for the programme, but which could not be foreseen at the outset.
