Articles

Introducing Junior Researcher Grants

Hannah Lettmann
|September 20, 2018

Update: This scheme has finished. But we're now running a £10,000 Grant Competition

What are Prolific’s Junior Researcher Grants?
A few weeks ago, we announced in our mission statement post that we want to help you do great research on Prolific. This is why we’ve invested a lot of energy into our Best Practice Guide, which will lead you through different phases of conducting research.

But let’s be honest: Funding matters. Especially when you're doing your PhD (or just finished it), you will probably not have lots of funding available to run studies. At Prolific, we understand this because we are researchers ourselves. So today, we’re proud to announce our first round of Junior Researcher Grants: $5,000 worth of Prolific credit which we’ll split among successful applicants.

We want to use this money to enable as many well-powered, high quality studies on Prolific as possible. You tell us how much funding you need, and we’ll do our best to distribute the grant pot to maximise high quality scientific output.

Am I eligible to apply?
We consider junior researchers to be one of the following:

  • Students enrolled in a graduate/PhD programme (that is, grad students, PhD students) or
  • Postdocs (that is, people who have already completed their PhDs and are conducting independent research, but aren’t university faculty members yet).

It doesn’t matter where in the world you are based to be eligible to apply for a Junior Researcher Grant. However, unfortunately, Bachelor’s and Master’s students are currently not eligible for the scheme.

Each applicant can only submit one first-authored Junior Reseacher Grant  application, so unfortunately you cannot submit multiple first-authored applications. But you are allowed to be a co-author on other people's applications in addition to your own first-authored application.

Also, please note that Junior Researcher Grants serve to enable projects that couldn't happen otherwise. In other words, if you already have a way of financing your research project, then we're afraid that Prolific's Junior Researcher Grants aren't the right scheme for you.

What do I need to submit in order to apply?
Please send us a single PDF document outlining your grant proposal. This should include:

  • A description of the theoretical and/or practical importance of the study/studies you intend to conduct [max. 200 words]
  • A description of the research methodology you will use [max. 200 words]
  • A description of the study costs: How much funding (out of the total 5,000 USD pot) will be needed from Prolific and how will it be spent? How did you calculate your required sample size? Don't forget to include the total study costs in addition to any extra funding you may need for bonus payments or custom screeners [max. 300 words] - Note that the 30% service charge (and VAT where applicable) on each participant payment still applies as usual!
  • Evidence that you’ve preregistered key aspects of your study. You can do this by including a link to your As Predicted-preregistration or an OSF-preregistration. (Wondering why you should preregister at all? Read more here!)
  • You’ll need explain how you’ll make your findings, study materials, analysis code, and data openly available once the study is complete [max. 100 words]. (Read here about the importance of open, reproducible science).

Please submit your application to: grants@prolific.ac

What are the evaluation criteria?
We will evaluate and compare all grant proposals. Winning proposals will be selected using the following criteria:

  • Potential contribution to knowledge and theoretical importance
  • Potential for real-world impact
  • Alignment with the principles of Open Science (e.g., preregistration, commitment to making all research material available, intention to publish in an open access journal)
  • Quality and clarity of study design (including prescreener selection, power analysis, planned pilot studies, and appropriate analysis plan)
  • Suitability for the Prolific platform

Lastly, you can always check out our Best Practice Guide, which was specifically designed to help you do great research!

When is the deadline? And when are winners announced?
Application opens today (20 September 2018) and closes in two months from now on 20 November 2018 at midnight (GMT). We will take a couple of weeks to assess all applications and announce the winners on our blog, on Facebook and on Twitter, but also via E-Mail as soon as possible. Grants will be awarded in the form of Prolific credit, directly to your researcher account.

Any catches?
No catches, but we would like to ask you for a brief interview and/or case study when your project is complete to see how it all went.🙂

Whom to contact in case of further questions?
If you have any further questions about the grants or the application procedure, please don’t hesitate to get in touch: grants@prolific.ac