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Although interdisciplinary research is an increasing trend in scientific funding projects, they are suffering from a lower probability of being funded. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the current situation on successful case of funding application and provides suggestions on how libraries can expand services to help scientific funding application.

This paper utilizes the co-occurrences of disciplinary application codes to construct an interdisciplinary knowledge flow network. Based on 193517 sponsored projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the authors study the interdisciplinary flow of knowledge and investigate the evolution of network structure using social network analysis.

Results show that the interdisciplinary knowledge flow network is not only a small-world network but also a scale-free network. Two main knowledge flow paths across scientific departments exist, showing the heterogeneity of knowledge distributions across scientific disciplines. The authors also find that if two disciplines in the same scientific department both have a wide influence to other disciplines, they are more prone to link together and create a knowledge chain.

Funding consultation currently has not occupied an advisory role either in library services or in the research team. This paper conducts a co-occurrences network analysis of interdisciplinary knowledge flow in scientific funding projects. Considering the complexity of funding application and the advantage of traditional library services on information collection, integration, and utilization, the authors conclude the possibility and necessity of embedding funding consultation in traditional library services.

This study aims to analyze the impact of the 2014 E-Rate reforms on the pattern of distribution of funds of the program.

Using Pennsylvania data, the paper investigates whether a school district that successfully applied for funding received increased support post-reforms, and what socio-economic characteristics of school districts were associated with successful applications. Furthermore, it asks whether the reforms reduced the barriers that disadvantaged school districts face in obtaining support.

The finding suggests that, even after controlling for changes in the school districts’ eligibility and application skills, the amount of funding committed to the school districts was still significantly higher after the reform.

The analysis shows that, immediately after the reform, the non-urban school districts were committed more funding than urban school districts were; they also received more funds than they would have without the reforms. This indicates that the 2014 reform might have benefited disadvantaged applicants, especially rural school districts.

While some previous research supports the existence of a finance gap within the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector, particularly for female owned SMEs, the evidence is hardly unequivocal. Further, much of the prior research has focused on supply‐ rather than demand‐side issues. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to investigate both supply‐ and demand‐side issues for female and male SME owners.

From the results of three focus groups and a review of the literature eight hypotheses were formulated for testing with a mail survey sent to 534 SME owners.

Based on 123 responses, the findings provide no evidence to suggest that a supply‐side finance gap exists within the Australian SME sector. There is also no evidence that Australian SME owners (particularly female owners) are being discouraged from applying for loans from a financial institution because they believe their application will be rejected. The results suggest that other demand‐side issues (particularly risk‐taking propensity and desire to maintain control) play a more important role in the capital structure decision making of SME owners.

This study's major limitations are its reliance on a sample of solely Western Australian businesses that were not representative of the population of Western Australian SMEs and its relatively small sample size.

Financial advisers need to be sensitive to various demand‐side issues when advising SME owners about the merits of applying for external funding.

This study adds to the limited available evidence concerning the importance of various demand‐side issues to SME owners considering accessing external funding.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss and critically examine how formal project management (PM) tools and techniques affect the organization of university research.

The paper is empirically grounded and explores how university researchers respond to an increasing emphasis on formalized PM methods to manage research work conducted within the university. The empirical material consists of 20 interviews with research staff working with engineering, natural and medical sciences at Uppsala University, Sweden. Describing how PM techniques are increasingly imposed upon the researchers, the paper analyses different modes of relating to the formalized toolsets, and discusses their accommodation and resistance within academia.

One key finding is how the PM formalization is resisted by partial accommodation and containment. This can be described in terms of an enactment of a front- and a backstage of the research organization. At the front-stage, formal PM technology and terminology is used by specially appointed research managers as means of presenting to funding agencies and other external parties. At the backstage, researchers carry out work in more traditional forms.

The findings indicate a challenge for research to comply with increased PM formalization and secure on-going open-ended research. Second, the paper points toward a risk of young researchers being nudged out into “front-stage” administration with little chance of returning to “backstage” research.

This paper builds upon a growing area of the critical analysis of PM practice, offering insights into the tension between the values and norms of university research and an on-going formalization of PM in some organizational contexts.

We identify the key social and political forces that brought about the Self Managed Attendant Service Direct Funding Pilot (SMAS-DFP). Attendant Services are services for people with physical disabilities (PWD) to assist with daily activities. Direct Funding means that individuals obtain funds through direct funding mechanisms and/or through third parties. Self-direction refers to consumers who know their attendant service needs and can instruct workers to meet these needs. Self-management refers to (PWD) who are employers under the law and are legally responsible for hiring, training, scheduling and paying their attendants. Our analysis of the success of the SMAS-DFP is based on pre-conditions and facilitating elements. The pre-conditions were the: (1) existence of social movements; (2) precedents to direct funding programs; (3) prior experience with the governance of attendant services; and (4) government health reform. Five elements facilitated the SMASD-FP: (1) a clear vision by the community; (2) a core group of leaders; (3) supporters of the SMAS-DFP came from inside and outside of the community; and (4) supporters provided key resources to be used and to deal with barriers. PWD successfully led the pilot (1994–1997) and continue to administer the expanded government program (began 1998).

It is obvious to many librarians that requests for information on funding sources are increasing in most types of libraries. Public support programs are dwindling, and corporate profits are receding. The publishing field has responded to this need by producing a new array of tools to help grant seekers find appropriate funding sources.

In this chapter, we share our top tips on writing impact for funding bids and reports. These are drawn from our extensive experience working across a UK university as research impact managers and also successfully developing and writing small to multimillion-pound grant applications for UK charity, UK Government and European funding. We have developed and delivered impact training to researchers at all career stages, written impact case studies for the UK's research assessment and published on the genre. ¹ We also lead the Impact Special Interest Group for the UK's Association of Research Managers and Administrators (ARMA) and contribute to conferences and specialist training internationally, which has included the Australasia region, Africa and Europe.

Service user and carer involvement in all aspects of the health and care research process, from co-applicant on funding applications to active engagement in a research study, is now a requirement for most research funders. However, as co-production increases and service users and carers take on more responsibilities, this involvement has legal, governance and ethical implications. The purpose of this paper is to raise awareness of the issues and consider potential solutions.

Experiences of engagement as co-applicants in research funding applications, of involvement as research study team members, and as co-researchers were gathered from a range of service user and carer experts. Consultation and a workshop gathered further evidence from a range of stakeholders across the research management community.

Service users and carers, who contribute to the research protocol and process, feel a strong sense of responsibility to ensure the high quality of a research study. However, they may be new to their roles, status and key responsibilities when acting as project team members, co-researchers or co-applicants engaging in funding applications. The responsibility of sponsors, grant holding organisations, funders and other members of the research community is to communicate with and support service users and carers in those roles. More needs to be done to understand the contractual, a legal and governance issues and responsibilities that are specific to service user and carer co-applicants, project team members and co-researchers, from both an organisational and individual service user and carer perspective.

The implications of the findings are to raise awareness of the practical, legal and ethical issues arising from this type of involvement and the potential risks arising from lack of cohesion or understanding. The review also highlights the concerns and barriers service users and carers may find in becoming involved.

The findings highlight a range of issues for research regulators, sponsors and investigators to consider to ensure service users and carers can fulfil their responsibilities and be supported in doing so.

Much of the literature on targeting of federal grants to the most needy local governments concentrates on the explanations of population and need. The author proposes that a third explanation, the aggressiveness and competence of city staffs, should receive attention from scholars also. The last major categorical grant program aimed at distressed urban areas, the Urban Development Action Grant program, is examined to find evidence of differences in the rates of submitting applications and successfully receiving funding among the eligible large cities. In a competitive grants program, federal targeting success will be limited because it is dependent on the initiative and capability of local officials to apply.

This paper examines innovation implementation in the public sector. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the “black box” of implementation of innovations and then answer questions of hindrances and opportunities when it comes to implementing innovative ideas in the public sector.

The specific context in this case is a city organization that received funding from the Delegation for Sustainable Cities to put six innovative ideas into practice in a city district. The data collection methods consisted of interviews and observations of meetings where the implementation phase was discussed.

The findings imply that innovative ideas that seemed best on paper often proved to be difficult to implement. The possibility of funding, for example, provided a reason to think “outside the box”, but the system for presenting the ideas in order to obtain the funding was time consuming. The resulting delay meant that, by the time the applications were evaluated, the submitted ideas were no longer necessarily the best available. The findings also imply that one important role of public organizations in implementing innovations is to facilitate the response by its users, here the inhabitants.

When discussing innovations and implementation the time aspects is a limitation, the future might imply other effects than the ones visible here.

Public sector managers possibilities of organizing to be more innovative can be discussed. From a management perspective focus might thus be on facilitate the implementation of the innovation, since the demand of the new solutions might be other than expected.

The users of public sector innovations, here the inhabitants, might demand other things that expected, which highlights the need of an ongoing dialogue between city managers and inhabitants.

The methodology of following projects in real time proved to be a unique approach for understanding the ”black box” of implementing innovative ideas. The existing paradoxes of managing public sector organizations are thus illustrated.