Charting the unchartered...

In science, you often hear researchers submitting project proposals to research councils and other funding bodies to apply for grants. In a sense, it is basically an attempt to convince the funders that it is a fantastic idea to back your project. With limited funding available, it is incredibly important to persuade them of the importance, urgency and impact of your research and present the best case of why they should fund you here and now. But whilst your research might be addressing pressing issues and the findings will result in you saving humanity, the funders also need to know that your project's aims and methods are sound and realistic with the given time, funds and people associated. So writing a compelling BUT succinct (funders have tonnes of applications to read through) AND accessible (as your funders are unlikely to be experts in your particular field of study) summary of your proposed research is actually quite a tough job!

Proposal writing time...
Whilst I don't need to convince any funding bodies for my Masters' project, I have to present my project ideas in an enthralling proposal to my supervisors and faculty, as part of my course. I must coax them into trusting that I have thought through the research question and designed a good explicit project plan, with reasonable methodology for data collection and analyses, so they can be confident (well largely so...) that I can carry out this (realistic) project. So last week I sent off my proposal...

Here, I will attempt to convince you to fund care about my research project in a very short summary of my proposal.

Lead the Way: Regional Drivers of English Mute Swan Population Change, Cygnus olor

Largely based on the Nature Conservancy Council Report (1981), which found lead poisoning as the single greatest cause of mute swan deaths in the UK,  a legislation was passed in 1986 banning the import, supply and use of lead angling weights in coarse fishing. Lead has been well documented to be metabolic poison of wildlife, but there was no quantitative evaluation of the effectiveness of this ban until a recent paper by Wood et al. (2019, Biological Conservation). This paper concluded that the ban explained the observed national population increases in mute swans.

However, a closer look at the regional variation in population trends by my supervisors, Rhys and Debbie, suggests it is unlikely that the population changes are driven by solely this one factor- for example, regions of low coarse fishing also show population increases following the ban. In addition, previous analyses by Chris Perrins and colleagues (2003, Avian Pathology) found that blood lead levels in 2000/01 were very similar to concentrations found in 1989/91, which suggests no further decline in blood lead levels, despite the expected decrease in the encounter rate of lead angling weights with time.

Focussing on the spatial and temporal variation in population trends across England, this project will use long-term datasets of demographic trends (i.e. productivity and survival) and environmental factors to investigate the extent to which different demographic drivers contribute to the observed population changes, at both the regional and national scale. Environmental factors I will investigate include: weather, agricultural crops (esp. oilseed rape), water quality, and of course, lead exposure.

*Following on in my proposal, the sources of these data were detailed and the proposed methods of analyses were also described and justified. *

Implications and Outcomes
This work will expand the evidence quantifying the effectiveness of legislation on lead angling weights in reducing exposure and decline of bird species. The evaluation of the effectiveness of conservation measures (including legislation) is exceptionally important because conservation action must be targeted at those with the greatest effectiveness, in order to use the limited resources afforded to conservation and also to ensure effective measures do not get disregarded in policy and new developments. In addition, this project seeks to identify the drivers behind some of the regional population declines (which are currently unknown) and this information will be of great importance to conservation practitioners in developing more targeted interventions at a regional scale.

*At the end of my proposal, I provided a list of anticipated problems and a contingency plan, alongside a detailed weekly plan of the work (e.g. what analysis to run and what to write up) and the costs. *

Well, I guess now the question is...are you convinced?