Glossary of terms

The world of funding is one that contains lots of everyday words with specialised meanings in the funding context. This glossary tries to give an overview of some of the most commonly used words.

Aims: The broad overview of what you want you project to achieve.
Bid: See grant/ funding proposal
Call for proposals: Large funding bodies might only accept grant proposals at set times of the year; for example quarterly. Typically they will issue a call for proposals, and give a precise deadline one or two months before the deadline. If the funding body you wish to apply to issues calls, you must make sure that you are aware of when they issue them.
Charitable trusts: Charitable trusts are organisations that pursue charitable goals, typically either related to poverty, religion or education. They can do this directly themselves, or by providing grants that enable others to pursue the trust's charitable goals on the their behalf.
Evaluation: Evaluation is the process of reflecting on your project and identifying what went well and what went less well. Large funding bodies will expect a plan of how you intend to evaluate your project as part of the proposal. Evaluation should also include looking at impact.
Funding body: Sometimes just called funders, funding bodies are organisations (typically charitable trusts) that support a particular area of society. They do this by providing grants to other organisations who write proposals to the funding body outlining the work they could do to help achieve the goals of the funder.
Funding proposal: See grant proposal
Grant: A grant is an amount of money given to a recipient organisation by a funding body, on the understanding that the recipient will carry out an agreed package of work (typically a project outlined in a grant/ funding proposal) in return for that money. Grants are typically not subject to VAT.
Impact: Impact is the observable effects that your project has. These could be long-term or short-term. For example, if you did a project on chemistry a short-term impact could be that grades in chemistry increased; a long-term impact might be that more people study chemistry in years after the project.
Grant proposal: Also called funding proposals, or bids. A proposal is a written application or request to a funding body that outlines the project that you want support for. It should include, at a minimum: details about what the project aims to achieve, justification as to why the project is needed, details about who will carry out the work, how much the project will cost. This will often be an application form, but for smaller funding bodies it could be a letter.
Learned Society: Learned Societies exist to promote a particular academic discipline. There are a large number of Learned Societies in the UK and they therefore cover most areas of science, from the Biochemical Society to the Royal Academy of Engineering to the Royal Statistical Society. Many Learned Societies run grant schemes that schools can apply to. Wikipedia has a list of Learned Societies in the UK.
Match/ matched funding: A process of soliciting the agreement of money from organisations, on the basis that their contribution will be matched by one or more other organisations, usually within a defined time period.
Mission: A philosophical or value statement that an organisation uses to justify its existence, its basic reason for being. A mission statement is not defined in terms of goals or objectives.
Objectives: Objectives are specific aims that you wish to achieve. They could a physical resource, or something more aspirational - so long as it can be measured; for example increasing the number of pupils studying A-level biology.
Outcomes: Outcomes are what you actually managed to achieve in a project. Outcomes should ideally be quantifiable.

Research Council: The Research Councils are executive agencies of Government that support research in universities, or dedicated research institutions owned by a Research Council. There are seven Research Councils in the UK: The Medical Research Council (MRC), The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), The Science and Technologies and Facilities Council (STFC), The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The Councils have a strategic partnership called RCUK which helps the councils work together more effectively. Most Research Councils will not offer direct financial support to schools, but they do have other sources of support and so are well worth investigating.
Research Councils UK: According to its website, Research Councils UK (RCUK) is a strategic partnership between the seven UK Research Councils. RCUK was established in 2002 to enable the Councils to work together more effectively to enhance the overall impact and effectiveness of their research, training and innovation activities, contributing to the delivery of the Government's objectives for science and innovation.