2.
Resources and Activities
Introduction
SPARC was based on three explicit activities, awards, workshops and advocacy, and other activities which were natural consequences of these. In essence these were the vehicles for achieving the aims of SPARC, which in short were to put into operation a new philosophy and approach to the development of ageing research in the physical and biological sciences. This section discusses the resources available for each of the main activities of SPARC.
Awards Scheme
The major resources employed by the awards scheme were:
· Funding
· Infrastructure for administering the awards scheme (for example, the office and web-based systems and procedures for making announcements, responding to enquiries, handling proposals and awards)
· Human resources (for example, the secretariat, the referees and the reviewers).
Funding
The proposal envisaged an initial finding level of £725,000 sufficient to support, say, 24 projects of about £30,000 to which it was hoped that further funding would be attracted which would enable more projects to be supported. It was planned that about 50% of the funding available to the secretariat would be devoted to the awards scheme, in all its facets. As a consequence the level of resource requested from the research councils envisaged an infrastructure which could cope with rather more proposals and awards.
Based on earlier discussions Between the principal investigator and staff of various small charities which wished to fund ageing-related research there was the belief that some of these would be prepared to supplement the funding received from the research councils. However, although detailed discussions were held with a number of such charities after the commencement of SPARC the time scale of SPARC was too short to enable them to contribute. There was one principal reason: insufficient time for persuading trustees to adopt what for most would have been a very new funding philosophy; one which would involve creating a partnership with a new and unproven organisation; and, also a requirement to devolve some key responsibilities. Nevertheless, a positive outcome was that the interest of these charities in ageing research was strengthened and they became more positively inclined towards ageing research. Some subsequently called regularly upon the directors for advice, even to the extent that two of these appointed the principal investigator as an advisor to their trustees. Also, where appropriate, the directors were able to direct researchers towards these charities as potential sources of research funding.
Despite this obstacle, additional funding was secured, but from the research councils. Initially there was a difference in the level of funding provided by EPSRC and BBSRC, but such was the quality of the proposals in response to Call 1 that, with the proviso that quality standards were maintained, BBSRC offered to raise its contribution to the same level as that of EPSRC. That threshold was reached and thus Call 2 brought the volume of funding to the level which it had originally been hoped for and, with a further 100 applications and 21 awards, used the infrastructure to the full. It would have been difficult for the secretariat and refereeing system to have handled many more proposals or more projects than were eventually supported.
Because of the requirements of SPARC awards, for example that the award holders’ institutions would forgo the overheads normally associated with research council funded projects, that they would meet part of the cost of studentships, and that the involvement of collaborators from within and outside of an institution would be contributed at no cost, SPARC funding achieved significant funding leverage. At the time the proposals were made, even leaving aside the overhead and indirect costs (46% for Call 1 and typically about 50% for Call 2), for about a quarter of the projects these additional costs were more than 50% of the SPARC award, for another quarter it was at least 30%, and for the others it was between 5% and 25%. By the end of most projects, largely because of the time spent by the investigators being greater than planned, a feature which is true of most research council funded projects, the additional costs were higher. When overheads and indirect costs are included a reasonable typical estimate would be that these additional contributions were at least equal to the value of the original awards. About 30% of this additional resource could be traced to the time spent by collaborators, advisers and similar partners, the rest was strongly related to the support the departments gave investigators and the investigators’ additional time spent on their projects.
Table 2.1: Collaborators
declared in proposals
|
Collaborators |
Number of projects |
|
None |
12 |
|
Own institution |
8 |
|
Other |
5 |
|
Own and other |
1 |
|
Own institution and
non-academic organisation |
1 |
|
Other |
1 |
|
Overseas institution |
1 |
|
Other |
2 |
|
Non academic organisations |
1 |
|
Own and other |
2 |
Notes: 1. Institutions
includes: universities and research institutes; 2. Non-academic organisations include: car
manufacturers, transport companies, PCTs, hospitals and charities; 3. For some
projects more collaborators became involved during the life of the projects.
Infrastructure
The systems developed for handling both the calls for proposals and the ensuing awards were introduced previously. Developing a comprehensive infrastructure, which in many aspects mirrored those of the research councils, that was secure and robust, was not without its challenges, especially as this had to be in place very quickly, within months of the start of SPARC. Great credit is due to the web master for designing and implementing, in a matter of weeks, a fully electronic system for handling applications and the refereeing of proposals.
As the number of projects supported by SPARC was relatively small the infrastructure for handling contractual matters, including making the awards, managing the funding of the projects, final reporting and reviewing, used more conventional office systems. These too followed a family of protocols to ensure consistency of practice and standards across the SPARC projects. However, the web-based systems were also necessary for the final stages in the life of each project, the publication of executive summaries and audio interviews with award holders. These too required careful development.
The web-based aspects of the infrastructure for SPARC extended beyond that needed for the awards scheme, to include, for example, the requirements of the systems for running workshops, providing information about funding opportunities, and announcing news from the world of ageing research. Here too there were specific challenges to producing an interesting, attractive, and viable website quickly and within very tight cost parameters. There is little doubt about the value of the website. It became extremely popular and subject to regular informal compliments about its coverage and content.
Human Resources
The human resources on which all peer review systems depend is the community and network of experts working in a particular area of interest. SPARC relied heavily on the goodwill of hundreds of such contacts, and enjoyed a very positive response from many of those invited to referee the proposals. For the second call this was a little muted, partly because the request to some referees for help with refereeing coincided with a similar and more onerous request from NDA. However, the support received, as reflected in nearly half of the requests being fulfilled, is very commendable, especially given the short time period available for refereeing.
The review of the final reports was more straightforward. Reviewers were chosen from amongst those who refereed a particular proposal. By appealing to their curiosity about what happened to a project almost all quickly agreed to undertake the reviews.
Two further key elements were the advisory committee and secretariat. The members of the committee undertook a considerable amount of work refereeing, reviewing and commenting on proposals, reports and the activities of the secretariat. They worked through a mountain of committee papers, proposals and reports as well as receiving briefings and being engaged in detailed discussions. All members of the committee acted in a voluntary unpaid capacity, except the chair who was employed as a consultant. As with all other activities, the secretariat carried the responsibility of ensuring the smooth running of the systems and procedures, the timely generation and provision of information, and liaison with the many individuals and organisations necessary for the running of the awards system.
Workshops
The resources input to the organisation and management of the workshops consisted of;
· Funding
· Infrastructure for administering the workshops
· Human resources (for example, the hosts and the presenters)
· Participants.
Funding
The budget for the workshops was based on the philosophy and experience of the EQUAL Network. Firstly, that to be of value, workshops needed to reflect the needs, interests and wishes of the broad community interested in ageing research and that most value would be obtained where these could be run jointly with organisations which were keen to promote a specific workshop theme and prepared to act as hosts. Secondly, reflecting the nature of SPARC as a community activity, hosts and other supporters were expected to be willing to meet some of the direct costs of workshops. Even so, with the secretariat doing much of the work required to run a workshop, SPARC would meet most of the cost of an event and, where appropriate, it did contribute to the direct costs of venue hire and refreshments. The financial budget for SPARC was based on 24 workshops during its life, on the assumption of relatively modest contributions from hosts. However, the staffing budget envisaged that, depending on how other activities developed, the secretariat would be able to handle at least 12 more workshops. Further, the budget envisaged that specific funding would be secured to support international workshops and participation in other events held overseas. So whilst the budget was for 24 workshops, the expectation was that the number of workshops organised would be greater.
This proved to be the case with 47 workshops being held. The table below shows the extent to which hosts and sponsors supported the direct costs of the workshops. Such support was particularly the case for the majority of the workshops which were designed to attract all-comers, although it was much less the case for those workshops designed just for the academic community. All of the nine international workshops were supported by either research councils (which generally met the full costs of the events apart from the time of the secretariat), or the hosts of the events or other sponsors (which met venue, refreshment and, at times, travel costs). In addition to these events the SPARC workshop budget and the secretariat supported two events organised by other bodies and which were not part of SPARC’s activities but at which SPARC award holders presented their findings. Also, seven briefings about SPARC were organised in the early months of SPARC and further briefings about ageing research were given during the life of SPARC. These were for various scientific and regional groupings of researchers.
Table 2.2: Contributions made to workshop costs by hosts and sponsors
|
Fully SPARC funded |
Jointly funded by SPARC &
other host/sponsor |
Funded by a Research Council |
Funded by other host or sponsor |
Total |
|
|
National all-comers |
1 |
8 |
- |
16 |
25 |
|
National - largely for older people |
5 |
- |
- |
- |
5 |
|
International |
- |
- |
2 |
2 |
4 |
|
International as part of a larger event |
- |
- |
2 |
3 |
5 |
|
For researchers only |
6 |
1 |
1 |
- |
8 |
|
Total |
12 |
9 |
5 |
21 |
47 |
Note: A
workshop in the
We do not know the actual costs incurred by those which supported SPARC events. However, on the basis of typical SPARC costs, the overall contribution is estimated to be between £72,500 and £85,000, the equivalent of about 50% of the SPARC budget for workshops (when including an allocation of the associated overheads including items such as office overheads and committee time).
Infrastructure
The approach to organising most workshops built heavily on the experience gained through the EQUAL Network, supported by the development of bespoke web-based systems for advertising workshops, handling registrations and making information available such as presentations given at workshops. The processes could not be completely web-based. Because of the need to attract as wide a variety of stakeholders as possible, especially older and disabled people, it was important to maintain parallel manual systems, to handle unexpected requests for information and assistance, and generally to sustain a personal touch. This was especially the case for those workshops which were heavily oversubscribed, which in the final two years was the norm. It was the aim to accommodate as many people as possible but maintain an intimate environment conducive to discussion and networking, so numbers had to be limited, even leaving aside cost considerations. In the early days imaginative ways were used to reach potentially interested groups of local people, and to encourage them to attend workshops at universities, a new experience for some, through offering a very personal welcome and reception.
Successful workshop organisation relies on considerable attention to detail, especially with non-academic audiences which are generally less-forgiving of organisational shortcomings than academic audiences. Good forward planning coupled with short-term flexibility and a good humour are essential. The experience gained through the EQUAL Network provided a sound systematic base for planning and running workshops. When the procedures and guidelines this generated were followed this approach worked very well and enabled SPARC to run workshops which were not just well organised but, as will be seen later, very well organised, thus giving ample justification for the funding for this aspect of SPARC’s activities.
The web-based system was immensely important to establishing the public face of SPARC, creating expectations about the way SPARC was to be presented and how it performed, and maintaining a consistent relationship with the community and other users. By all accounts, these have found the website easy to navigate and the information they have required, easy to find.
Human Resources
Workshops require hosts, presenters, participants and organisers. Although there was no shortage of organisations willing to host events , it would be wrong to suggest that at any one point in time there was a major pool of offers on which to draw which could provide a series of workshops which covered the spread of topics appropriate to SPARC. Indeed there were some areas which were not covered which should have been. However there was a good mix of hosts with roughly a quarter in each of the following categories: universities; the professions and industry; charities and government; and, conference organisers, research councils and solely SPARC.
Table 2.3: Workshop sponsors and hosts
|
Number |
|
|
University |
12 |
|
|
|
|
Professional or scientific body |
5 |
|
Industrial company or industrial network |
5 |
|
|
|
|
Charity |
5 |
|
Government or charity funded network to
support research – practice linkages |
5 |
|
Local government |
1 |
|
|
|
|
Conference Organisers |
4 |
|
Research Council supported through SPARC |
3 |
|
None – wholly SPARC |
7 |
|
Total |
47 |
Similarly there was no shortage of willing presenters for workshops. In part the programme for workshops was built
around presenters who could contribute to particular themes, and a flexible
interpretation of both the themes and the relevance of a particular
presentation to a theme. Although in the second half of SPARC’s life cycle it
was possible to incorporate SPARC award holders into the programmes, initially
this was not possible, so there was a reliance on those who had held awards
from EQUAL, SAGE and ERA. However, there was also the intention to include the
presenters who were most relevant to a theme regardless of how their work had
been funded as well as to include professionals and older people. This provided
both a broader spread of current research on which to draw and also wider
networking opportunities. Indeed, a conscious effort was made to ensure that
the workshops were not seen as exclusively to do with research council funded
programmes but were inclusive of contemporary ageing research. Similarly there
was a determined effort to include as chairs and commentators individuals who
were from outside of the academic world, and whose perspectives were likely to
be different from those who were immersed in research.
Although filling some slots in programmes could be problematic, seldom did those who were approached to take part in a workshop refuse the opportunity, if they were available. The motivations for taking part varied but most researchers enthusiastically embraced the spirit of SPARC, especially when workshops were for all-comers. Although some were also nervous about these events, for very human reasons they were keen to have a platform where they could talk about their work and, for less experienced researchers, something valuable for their CVs. They were further encouraged by the minimal requirements placed upon them. Papers and handouts were not needed, they needed just to turn up on the day, make a presentation which would be of interest to a varied audience and, subject to possible restrictions, allow their presentations to be published on the SPARC website. Such was the support that during the course of SPARC there were frequent offers from researchers to present their work at forthcoming workshops, thus contributing to one of the more straightforward activities of SPARC.
Similar comments can be made about attracting participants to SPARC workshops, these too were rarely in short supply. This was largely due to the extremely good networks of communication which had been developed through the EQUAL Network which were immediately available to SPARC and the involvement of the members of the secretariat with the relevant communities, especially with researchers but also with charitable and voluntary agencies, professional organisations and to some extent local government organisations. As will be discussed later, by the end of SPARC there had been over 3200 participants in workshops from across a very wide range of backgrounds and interests, providing a significantly varied range of perspectives which were essential inputs to the life of SPARC. Newcomers to workshops found that they were very friendly events where everyone’s experience and views were valued. Much work went into strategies to maximise the networking potential. For most participants the networking aspects of the workshops were seen as immensely valuable, not just for making contacts but as part of building a rapport across different cultures, backgrounds and perspectives. In turn this contributed to an increase in membership, with participants joining and encouraging their colleagues to do so as well.
Most SPARC workshops relied on the organisational capabilities of both the SPARC secretariat and the workshop hosts. Although the funding for SPARC was intended to provide for the main organisational input to workshops, thereby not greatly imposing on the resources of hosts, there were responsibilities which needed to be undertaken by the hosts and which they wished to undertake. In the main these were organising the venues and catering and ensuring that their own networks were aware of the workshops. The partnership worked well. SPARC and the host would agree a programme and speakers for the event and the host would ensure that facilities would be available. Then, until a few weeks before the event, the secretariat would be left to organise the event, making detailed arrangements with speakers, advertising it, taking registrations and the many other activities which go with running events. A few weeks before an event, the host would become more involved, gearing up for the event which, after all, they were hosting, on occasions working with SPARC to contact the media and, for example, resolving outstanding issues relating to the facilities. It is stressed that, although their organisation relied heavily on SPARC’s experience of running workshops, these were joint events. Just as SPARC claims that they were SPARC workshops, so quite rightly the host could lay the same claim for their own organisation.
A final aspect of
the workshop activity was that on several occasions the SPARC secretariat had
the additional role of passing on its experience of workshop organisation to
hosts so that they could run such workshops in their own right. This was achieved through working together,
exchanging experiences, discussing relevant items and working to checklists and
good practice guidance notes compiled as a result of many previous SPARC
workshops and, prior to these, EQUAL workshops. Learning also happened from
detailed analysis of workshop evaluations by participants.
Advocacy
SPARC’s advocacy role
led to a variety of activities, some formal, others very informal, some
planned, others serendipitous. The aim was to influence policy makers both
directly, through face to face meetings and briefings, and indirectly through
disseminating information to a wide range of interest groups which as a result
would be better able to influence policy makers.
Funding
The SPARC budget covered the development of promotional materials, brochures and posters suitable for a range of activities from individual meetings and briefings to workshops. However, it was always envisaged that although the development of, say, brochures would need to be planned to meet specific needs, much advocacy would be undertaken by the directors operating in a largely unplanned way, taking advantage of opportunities as they arose. The main budget item for this activity was for the travel and subsistence.
A further budget item was for the support of a consultant in the later stages of the project, to advise on the production of executive summaries of each of the SPARC projects suitable for educated lay audiences. In the event a 15 month part-time post was created for a Publicity Officer, whose role was to be rather broader.
Infrastructure and Human Resources
The infrastructure initially comprised systems and procedures for handling news and making announcements about SPARC and the world of ageing research through the SPARC website and to members of SPARC through the SPARC membership mail-list. This was supplemented by the publication on the SPARC website of reports generated by SPARC, for example annual reports and project executive summaries. Protocols for the development of brochures, annual reports and eventually executive summaries and for branding SPARC publications were also created. With the appointment of the SPARC Publicity Officer, late in the third year, a more systematic approach for working with the media then developed. Whilst these approaches provided the basis for widespread publicity about SPARC, and more generally ageing research, and reached very large numbers of interested people, the more direct forms of advocacy relied principally on the directors, and to some extent the coordinators, using their personal networks and influence to gain access, for example, to policy makers and to prestigious gatherings.
Organisation
This section of the report, concerned with the mechanisms and resources through which SPARC operated, the basis for achieving its many objectives and aims, has shown that the resources available to SPARC, directly from EPSRC and BBSRC from the broad community of interested parties were clearly sufficient to achieve its objectives. This support enabled SPARC to build on the experience gained in running the preceding EQUAL Network, to develop a clear approach to the organisation of the awards scheme, to rapidly implement a web-based communication systems, and to achieve significant the leverage from the participation of many organisations and individuals in variously the hosting of workshops through to the refereeing of research proposals. That support would not have been achieved if SPARC had not been viewed as a credible professional undertaking.
The way SPARC was structured was based not just on experience with EQUAL but on principles consistent with other empirical developments as well as contemporary theories of organisational and cultural change and innovation. In essence SPARC was an action research project which built on critical reflection on the development of EQUAL and the EQUAL Network and extending the resulting understanding of how to achieve permanent cultural change within communities with an interest in the role of science, in this case to improving the lives of older people, to SPARC. Embodied within this approach was the intention to work with these communities through a series of interventions (for example, awards, workshops, advocacy), fact-finding about the result of these actions and reflection followed by further planning and action. The proposal for SPARC outlined the prime interventions which were to be pursued by SPARC, and through both explicit and implicit references to the EQUAL Network, the processes to be followed. As such it set out a level of activity which it was reasonable to expect to be achieved and around which budgets had been built. However, because of the nature of SPARC and the opportunities which the interventions were likely to generate, expectations could quite reasonably be much higher.
SPARC was not an unusual project for EPSRC to fund, but it may have been for BBSRC. Certainly it differed from conventional research projects. Some of these differences are discussed below.
Beneficiaries
Unlike most research council funded projects for which the investigators are the principal beneficiaries or ‘clients’, gaining from the advancement of their own careers and standing through the pursuit of new knowledge which may subsequently benefit others, the principal clients for this project were members of the research community and non-academic communities with an interest in ageing research. The focus on their needs, rather than those of the investigators, placed a significant requirement on the organisation of the project in terms of transparency, inclusion and appeal, and in turn a requirement for consistency of approach for managing relationships with these communities. However, the project was not without experience of managing such relationships. The EQUAL Network had been judged as ‘Outstanding’ by its assessors largely because of the sympathetic and professional way it had developed a rapport with a range of user communities. It had recognised that they were its principal clients, and it was on the basis of this success that SPARC had been proposed. It was important that SPARC was to be driven by the agendas of these participants and not those of the directors.
Partners
Consideration of the principal clients for SPARC highlights another difference from conventional projects. In such projects, individuals, organisations and communities are often treated as subjects for research, and at times the need for, say, objectivity leads to an arm’s length relationship between the researcher and these subjects. SPARC differed. For this project a pre-requisite was a willingness to understand the needs, aspirations and motivations of both the academic and non-academic clients and to embrace them as part of the project, to work with them to build a new community of interest in ageing research. They were neither subjects nor were they just clients, but partners in this endeavour. Because SPARC was to do with ageing and older people, and bringing together researchers and the range of stakeholders in ageing, then a basic requirement was an interest in and respect for older people. Little could be achieved without an interest on the part of the secretariat in the lives which older people lead, the challenges they face, what they value and, in relation to SPARC, a belief in the worth of their involvement in the world of research. Older people, the organisations which represent them and the professionals which provide services to them, are largely unfamiliar with the academic world. An investment of significant time and effort in building relationships with them would be required. This was no more than had been expected for any project funded through the EQUAL Initiative during the preceding eight years.
Systems
Given the nature of its task, a series of activities serving the needs and interests of its partners, each with a high degree of repetition (for example many projects and many workshops) there were two other important requirements. Firstly, for consistency in the management of relationships, so as not to confuse partners, and secondly, the good sense in achieving this consistency, so as to ensure the organisational learning which could lead to the more efficient operation of SPARC’s activities. Such requirements called for learning from experience and good practice and using this to enhance later activities through a degree of systematisation in procedures. Given the nature of the activities, for example organising the awards scheme and the workshops, both or which had relatively few unknowns, such systematisation was clearly possible and desirable. For some activities there was a further influence which called for systematisation, the expectation that the awards scheme would parallel that of the research councils.
Differences
In organisational terms the differences outlined above placed SPARC in a very different situation to that of a conventional project. The nature of SPARC’s tasks required greater attention to be paid to managing external relationships, and higher degrees of systematisation and integration between members of the secretariat than would be usual with conventional research projects. These are usually characterised by many fewer relationships to be managed and lower levels of systematisation appropriate to the nature of discovery. Integration would also be necessary for the greater degree of analysis and reflection on particular actions and their outcomes, appropriate to an action research project. Probably only the advocacy activities could accommodate the flexibility and independence which characterises much conventional project working but even for some of the advocacy tasks, such as the production of the executive summaries, there was a requirement for consistency in approach and the standards these achieved.