Funding the practice of learning: exploring the relationship between funders and grant recipients

Marsh, Sheila; Cameron, Marsaili; Dewar, Steve; Hinds, Kathryn

doi:10.1332/174426408x366649

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Funders are not necessarily antithetical to these ideas. Indeed, the most innovative among them are attempting to orient their processes towards 'learning partnerships' with communities, where the discovery of practice-based knowledge is a shared priority of both funders and grantee (Marsh et al, 2008).…”

Section: What This Thinking Offers Funding Strategy and Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

Resources, relationships, and systems thinking should inform the way community health promotion is funded

Kavanagh

Shiell

Hawe

et al. 2020

Critical Public Health

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Public health agencies tasked with improving the health of communities are poorly supported by many 'business-as-usual' funding practices. It is commonplace to call for more funding for health promotion, but additional funding could do more harm than good if, at the same time, we do not critically examine the micro-processes that lead to health enablementmicro-processes that are instigated or amplified by funding. We are currently engaged in a university-and-policy research partnership to identify how funding mechanisms may better serve the practice of community-based health promotion. We propose three primary considerations to inform the way funds are used to enable community-based health promotion. The first is a broader understanding and legitimising of the 'soft infrastructure' or resources required to enhance a community's capacity for change. The second is recognition of social relationships as key to increasing the availability and management of resources within communities. The third consideration understands communities to be complex systems and argues that funding models are needed to support the dynamic evolution of these systems. By neglecting these considerations, current funding practices may inadvertently privilege communities with pre-existing capacity for change, potentially perpetuating inequalities in health. To begin to address these issues, aspects of funding processes (e.g., stability, guidance, evaluation, and feedback requirements) could be designed to better support the flourishing of community practice. Above all, funders must recognise that they are actors in the health system and they, like other actors, should be reflexive and accountable for their actions.

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Section: What This Thinking Offers Funding Strategy and Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

Resources, relationships, and systems thinking should inform the way community health promotion is funded

Kavanagh

Shiell

Hawe

et al. 2020

Critical Public Health

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“…Efforts have been made to even the playing field through introducing forums, skill-building sessions, sharing experiences of successful applicants and practical support to help applicants move from an idea to application. Similar to Marsh and colleagues ( 2008 ), the funding body has developed a ‘partnership’ model whereby the funding process is viewed as a learning opportunity that can provide support with programme implementation and evaluation. For example, content advisors and grant recipients come together for forums to foster intelligence gathering and relationship building.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Icing or cake? Grant competitions as a model for funding chronic disease prevention in Tasmania, Australia

Loblay

Garvey

Shiell

et al. 2022

Health Promotion International

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Summary Competitive grant funding is a well-established mechanism for generating activity and interventions in the field of chronic disease prevention. Yet grant competitions may be burdensome for organizations, and money may not be enough to bring about lasting change in communities. In this study, we explore the dynamics of awarding and receiving money in the context of a state-level government grant competition to support community organizations and promote community-driven action for health and well-being in Tasmania, Australia. Drawing on reflections of successful grant recipients and real-time observation of grant decision-making, we consider the role and value of grant competitions both for individual organizations and for generating broader change processes. We found that grant competitions operated according to an ‘icing-on-the-cake’ approach to funding, whereby money was provided for extra activities and new initiatives. In this way, the grant competition was valuable not only for stimulating new programme activities but also to effect broader organizational change, such as developing planning capacity, igniting new directions and pushing organizations towards ‘health’-focused activities. But for smaller organizations, grant funding was often stretched to support core work (i.e. cake rather than icing). Grants targeting specific focus areas could be a drain on resources if they diverted staff time away from core activities. We suggest an alternative approach to funding in which grants are able to be more responsive to the needs of community organizations and the support they require, as well as to desired outcomes. We describe the policy response to the results to date.

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Research, policy and funding – academic treadmills and the squeeze on intellectual spaces¹

Smith

2010

British Journal of Sociology

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In recent years, there has been a great deal of collective rumination about social scientists' role in society. In the post-1997 UK context, public policy commitments to 'evidence-based policy' and 'knowledge transfer' have further stimulated such reflections. More recently, Michael Burawoy's 2004 address to the American Sociological Association, which called for greater engagement with 'public sociology' has reverberated throughout the discipline, motivating a series of debates about the purpose of sociological research. To date, most such contributions have been based on personal experience and anecdotal evidence. In contrast, this paper responds directly to Burawoy's suggestion that we should 'apply sociology to ourselves,' in order that we 'become more conscious of the global forces' driving our research (Burawoy 2005: 285). Drawing on an empirical research project designed to explore of the relationship between health inequalities research and policy in Scotland and England, in the period from 1997 until 2007, this paper discusses data from interviews with academic researchers. The findings suggest that the growing pressure to produce 'policy relevant' research is diminishing the capacity of academia to provide a space in which innovative and transformative ideas can be developed, and is instead promoting the construction of institutionalized and vehicular (chameleon-like) ideas. Such a claim supports Edward Said's (1994) insistence that creative, intellectual spaces within the social sciences are increasingly being squeezed. More specifically, the paper argues we ought to pay far greater attention to how the process of seeking research funding shapes academic research and mediates the interplay between research and policy.

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Funding the practice of learning: exploring the relationship between funders and grant recipients

Cited by 3 publications

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Resources, relationships, and systems thinking should inform the way community health promotion is funded

Resources, relationships, and systems thinking should inform the way community health promotion is funded

Icing or cake? Grant competitions as a model for funding chronic disease prevention in Tasmania, Australia

Research, policy and funding – academic treadmills and the squeeze on intellectual spaces¹

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Funding the practice of learning: exploring the relationship between funders and grant recipients

Cited by 3 publications

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Resources, relationships, and systems thinking should inform the way community health promotion is funded

Resources, relationships, and systems thinking should inform the way community health promotion is funded

Icing or cake? Grant competitions as a model for funding chronic disease prevention in Tasmania, Australia

Research, policy and funding – academic treadmills and the squeeze on intellectual spaces1

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Research, policy and funding – academic treadmills and the squeeze on intellectual spaces¹