How to get a grant for scientific research

In applying for a research grant, it's essential to start by identifying the appropriate granting body to contact for your proposal, as each body usually has its own particular priority areas. Once you've done this, check you can meet both the eligibility criteria and the deadline for the submission of applications. Your proposal should be written out in the format stipulated by your chosen organisation. Almost all granting bodies now have electronic application forms posted on the Internet, although these can sometimes be both complex and cumbersome. A grant request is generally broken down into the following components:

Objectives

Succinctly describe your research goal, and what you propose to do to achieve this. It's a good idea to propose only those objectives that you feel relatively confident of achieving within the grant period. A proposal with too many objectives to be included in a relatively short time is likely to be considered over-ambitious, and might well be rejected, even if it involves cutting-edge science or a revolutionary new idea.

Background and rationale

Introduce the problem that the research intends to address. The length of your description is dictated by the length limitations on the application form. You should cover what is already known about the problem in the scientific literature, and highlight the major gaps or limitations in the current knowledge base. The final paragraph should state precisely what you will have achieved if the project succeeds, and the likely impact of a successful research project. In addition, many application forms, even for basic research grants, now have a section in which you're required to describe how the research is likely to contribute to economic development.

Experimental design and methods

You must describe in detail exactly what you're going to do to achieve your stated objectives. You should provide sufficient details to enable the review panel to critically evaluate your project. In particular, you must show how the experimental design will answer the questions that you're setting out to address; poor experimental design is the downfall of many applications.

Critical appraisal and limitations of the proposed approach

Describe the possible limitations of your proposed approach. For example, one of your proposed methodologies may have certain disadvantages that could impact adversely on your findings. A reviewer will certainly point this out and might find it sufficient grounds for rejecting your proposal. To meet such concerns, you should therefore state clearly that you're aware of the limitations of your approach, and if possible propose an alternative strategy if your first approach fails to deliver. You should also describe briefly any particular strengths of your laboratory likely to contribute to the success of the project if it is funded.

Information for Post Office User

The Driving Test

A driving test in Britain is made up of a theory test and a practical test. You cannot normally take the practical test without first having passed the theory test. You pay a fee for each part of the test - for details, see under heading Fees. Before you can apply for a test, you must have a valid Great Britain or Northern Ireland provisional driving licence.

The Theory Test

The theory test is in two parts. The first is a computerised touch screen test in which you have to select the correct answer from a number of choices. The second part is called the hazard perception test. You will be shown a set of video clips of driving hazards and asked to click the mouse button as soon as you spot a hazard. You have to pass both parts of the theory test at the same sitting in order to pass.

The Practical Test

The practical test will test your ability to exercise adequate control of your vehicle and normally lasts 40 minutes. If you have a physical disability you will be asked to demonstrate any special controls on your vehicle. The practical test also includes two questions on vehicle safety designed to make sure that you know how to check the safety of your vehicle. Topics covered are tyres, brakes, fluids, lights, reflectors, direction indicators and homs. If you fail, or do not take the practical test within two years of having passed the theory test, you will have to pass the theory test again before you can apply for a practical test. When you have passed the practical test, if you have a photocard provisional licence and your personal details have not changed, you can hand it over to the examiner, and a full licence will be issued to you automatically. Otherwise, you must apply to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) for your full licence within two years of the test date. If you don't do this, you will have to take the practical test (and the theory test) again.

Probationary Period

When you pass your driving test for the first time, you will be subject to a two-year probationary period. This applies to anyone driving on a licence issued by the DVLA. The two-year period begins on the day you first pass the practical test. If during the probationary period you are convicted of driving offences for which six or more penalty points are awarded, your driving licence will be revoked. If your full driving licence is revoked, you will revert to learner status and be treated as if you never passed a driving test. To continue driving, you will have to get a provisional driving licence and drive with learner's plates until you have passed both the theory and practical parts of the driving test.

Driving in the UK

Advice to drivers from countries within the European Community and European Economic Area

Section A. If you hold a valid Community driving licence and are coming to the UK for a limited period, you can drive any vehicle if the full entitlement for that vehicle is shown on the licence.

Section B. If you are coming to live in the UK for a longer period, a valid Community licence issued on the strength of a driving test within the EC/EEA will allow you to drive in GB for a set period.

While your licence remains valid, you may drive in the UK:

1- until aged 70 or for three years after becoming resident, whichever is the longer period

2- until aged 45 or for five years after becoming resident, whichever is the longer period

3- if you are aged over 45 (but under 65) until your 66th birthday or for five years after becoming resident, whichever is the shorter period

4- if you are aged 65 or over for 12 months after becoming resident

In order to continue driving after these periods, you must get a British driving licence.

Section C. You must tell the DVLA about relevant conditions or disabilities that existed before you came to the UK and which you may have already notified to the authorities. This also includes any conditions you have recently become aware of. In most cases, the rules will be the same as those in other EC/EEA countries although there may be some differences. Higher visual standards apply for vocational drivers in this country.

Section D. If you want to take a British driving test, you must be a resident in the UK. However, if you have moved to the UK, having recently been a permanent resident in another state of the EC/EEA, you must be a resident in the UK for 185 days in the 12 months before your application for a driving test and full licence. To take a UK driving test you will need to either:

1- apply for a UK counterpart licence (D58/2) by completing a D9 enclosing your Community driving licence, or

2- exchange your community licence for the British equivalent and request the appropriate provisional entitlement

A provisional licence document is issued free of charge. However, the appropriate fee must be paid and your Community licence surrendered in exchange for a UK one when claiming the full entitlement.

Section E. Community licence holders with category B entitlement can also drive certain vehicles in the UK which are exempt from the normal large vehicle driver licensing requirements. These include non-commercial minibuses driven on a voluntary basis, permit minibuses and large vehicles such as agricultural motor vehicles and road construction vehicles. Further details about these vehicles and the conditions that apply to them can be found in the fact sheet 'Special Licensing Arrangements For Drivers of Large Vehicles' available from the DVLA.

Section F If you drive a coach or lorry as your job, you can exchange your non-UK driving licence for a UK one, but it might affect your Driver Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC). Find out what rules apply if you exchange your driving licence while you have Driver CPC or if you want to get it.

BRIGHT LIGHTS, BUG CITY

In the heart of Africa's savannah, there is a city built entirely from natural, biodegradable materials, and it's a model of sustainable development. Its curved walls, graceful arches and towers are rather beautiful too. It's no human city, of course. It's a termite mound. Unlike termites and other nest- building insects, humans pay little attention to making buildings fit for their environments. As we wake up to climate change and resource depletion, though, interest in how insects manage their built environments is growing, and we have a lot to learn. The building mechanisms and the design principles that make the properties of insect nests possible aren't well understood,' says Guy Theraulaz of the Research Centre on Animal Cognition in France. That's not for want of trying. Research into termite mounds kicked off in the 1960s, when Swiss entomologist Martin Liischer made groundbreaking studies of nests created by termites of the genus Macrotermes on the plains of southern Africa.

It was Liischer who suggested the chaotic-looking mounds were in fact exquisitely engineered eco- constructions. Specifically, he proposed an intimate connection between how the mounds are built and what the termites eat. Macrotermes species live on cellulose, a constituent of plant matter that human can't digest. In fact, neither can termites. They get round this by cultivating gardens for fungi, which can turn it into digestible nutrients. These areas must be well ventilated, their temperature and humidity closely controlled - no mean feat in the tropical climates in which termites live. In Liischer's theory, heat from the fungi's metabolism and the termites' bodies causes stagnant air, laden with carbon dioxide, to rise up a central chimney. From there it fans out through the porous walls of the mound, while new air is sucked in at the base.

This simple and appealing idea spawned at least one artificial imitation: the Eastgate Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe, designed by architect Mick Pearce, which boasts a termite-inspired ventilation and cooling system. It turns out, however, that few if any termite mounds work this way. Scott Turner, a termite expert at The State University of New York, and Rupert Soar of Freeform Engineering in Nottingham, UK, looked into the design principles of Macrotermes mounds in Namibia. They found that the mounds' walls are warmer than the central nest, which rules out the kind of buoyant outward flow of CO-rich air proposed by Liischer. Indeed, injecting a tracer gas into the mound showed little evidence of steady, convective air circulation. Turner and Soar believe that termite mounds instead tap turbulence in the gusts of wind that hit them. A single breath of wind contains small eddies and currents that vary in speed and direction with different frequencies. The outer walls of the mounds are built to allow only eddies changing with low frequencies to penetrate deep within them. As the range of frequencies in the wind changes from gust to gust, the boundary between the stale air in the nest and the fresh air from outside moves about within the mounds' walls. allowing the two bodies of air to be exchanged. In essence, the mound functions as a giant lung.

This is very different to the way ventilation works in modern human buildings, where fresh air is blown in through vents to flush stale air out. Turner thinks there's something to be gleaned from the termites approach. 'We could turn the whole idea of the wall on its head,' he says. "We shouldn't think of walls as barriers to stop the outside getting in, but rather design them as adaptive, porous interfaces that regulate the exchange of heat and air between the inside and outside. Instead of opening a window to let fresh air in, it would be the wall that does it, but carefully filtered and managed the way termite mounds do it.'

Turner's ideas were among many discussed at a workshop on insect architecture organised by Theraulaz in Venice, Italy, last year. It aimed to pool understanding from a range of disciplines, from experts in insect behaviour to practising architects. 'Some real points of contact began to emerge/ says Turner. 'There was a prevailing idea among the biologists that architects could learn much from us. I think the opposite is also true.' One theme was just how proficient termites are at adapting their buildings to local conditions. Termites in very hot climates, for example, embed their mounds deep in the soil - a hugely effective way of regulating temperature. 'As we come to understand more, it opens up a vast universe of new bio-inspired design principles,' says Turner. Such approaches are the opposite of modern human ideas of design and control, in which a central blueprint is laid down in advance by an architect and rigidly stuck to. But Tumer thinks we could find ourselves adopting a more insect-like approach as technological advances make it feasible.