Where do you look for resources to fund your research?

ByLeonardo C. Oliveira and Deborah Faria

One of the important points in the training of a researcher is his training in obtaining resources to finance his research. It is true that graduate students often begin their research within projects that have already been funded, since their mentors have obtained funds to fund field collections or laboratory work. But in other cases the student enters the course with a good idea of ​​the project and, along with his supervisor, goes in search of resources that make possible to execute the research proposal. Our graduate program believes that for the complete training of a researcher, learning to seek and obtain resources is as fundamental a step as knowing theories and applications of this knowledge. Believe in this statement: "If you want to be a successful researcher you will have to go and get funding for your research!"

Fortunately, there are a number of funders for research projects in the area of ​​ecology and biodiversity conservation, although the resources made available by these agencies are always smaller than the demand. It is necessary to detect these sources, understand the profile of each funder and learn how to submit proposals that can effectively compete in calls and calls, both in Brazil and abroad.

It is very important to keep in mind that each funding agency has its particular research profile to fund and, especially, its own proposal submission schedule. In fact, the period between submission and actual release of resources can be more than a year! So the first piece of advice we give you here is: once you join the program, start researching the agency's profile and timeline, select those that fund projects within the scope of your research, and submit proposals as quickly as possible. Try several agencies to increase your chance of approval on at least one of them. So once again, we need planning!

Okay, so how to find the treasure map?

A tip to start:

1. Take 2 to 3 articles that you find essential for your research (because they are similar to your project, same biome, same species, etc.)

2. Look in the acknowledgments of this article (s) for the sources of funding used by the authors of the article. Because of the similarity to your work, the same source can be used by you in your project

3. Do the same when attending conferences. The panels presented at the congresses always bring the funding source, which is also always cited at the end of the oral presentations. Most of the abstracts published in annals of congress also have this information.

4. Finding the name of the funder in these sources, just use Google to find the links.

To begin with we also put some links from agencies that are much sought after in our area for financing, both in Brazil and abroad: