Cradle-to-grave or pre and post?

Researchers were involved at all stages of the research lifecycle, but research managers might not be...

A quick google of 'Research lifecycle' will get you dozens of variations on the same basic process: generate a research idea, win the resources to pursue it, set up the programme, run the programme, disseminate the results, closeout the programme and start the cycle again with a new research idea.

The design of a research and innovation support system needs to consider where and when support resources are allocated in that process. A popular split is to have 'pre-award' supports that focus on helping researchers to win the needed resources, and 'post-award' supports that help to actually implement the research programme. This is the model we generally follow at UCD, and it is captured stage-by-stage in our portal website.

Some organisations opted for a 'cradle-to-grave' model, where the same research manager provides support at pre-award stage and then takes on the role of post-award support if the proposal is successful. There were diverse views from the interviewees on the benefits and drawbacks of either approach, but a few consistent ideas came through.

Cradle-to-grave gives consistency to the researchers, and the knowledge gained during the pre-award phase transfers seamlessly to the post award stage (i.e. there's no handover needed). It was noted, however, that the kinds of skills that provide great proposal development support aren't always the same skills needed to manage a programme. So with a pre/post split people can focus on what they are best at and specialise, whereas a cradle-to-grave model requires generalists who may have particular strengths and weaknesses in aspects of the lifecycle but still have to deliver against it all.

It is common to invest in pre-award supports to grow research funding and scale-up the level of research activity, but then a lack of post-award support resources means that actually executing the projects becomes challenging. Cradle-to-grave reduces that risk by moving the resource to post-award as projects are won. However, this effectively takes away pre-award resources which can leave the University less able to meet demand, particularly during periods of growth in national and international research funding.

It was also clear that the boundary between pre-award and actually running an active research programme can be more of a chasm than a tiny line. For example, if pre-award stops at the point of submitting a proposal and a funder provides budget to hire a post-award research manager, then who supports the activity after proposal submission but before that post-award manager is hired i.e. the negotiation of contracts and agreements, the setting up of accounts, recruiting the initial team, securing initial space and facilities and so on?

For a small straightforward grant this can probably be managed by the researcher, but the rise of large-scale collaborations and more complex grant types means that often it's like setting up a small business. Cradle-to-grave certainly helps here by automatically bridging the gap, and if you are going with a pre- and post- split then this gap needs to be a well defined and resourced service to avoid serious delays to larger or complex grants.

Looking across the spectrum of responses from the interviews, a pre- and post- split is more common, but it often gets built in to the support design from the start so it's generally not the case that people have seriously considered both options and deliberately selected one. I would not say that one is better than the other, but I think they suit different stages of the research 'journey' of a University.

If your funding environment is growing and your priority is winning as much funding as possible to grow your research activity then a pre-post- split seems to make the most sense. It enables you to prioritise the winning of funds. If your research environment has reached a more 'steady-state' stage and doing well with the funding you have is more important than growing year-on-year, then cradle-to-grave may better suit that situation as it builds holistic end-to-end approaches that better align the planning, proposal, and execution stages.

The interesting implication here is that an organisation should seek to use both approaches but at different stages of development, and making that switch in a structured and deliberate way is something that I've not yet seen.

In the next article I'll cover a different kind of split, funder expertise versus topic expertise.