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Brain surgery

  

Major changes lie ahead at a global neuroscience research funder

The International Brain Research Organization lives up to its name. With more than 90 member organisations, Ibro offers grants for neuroscientists in every corner of the globe.

Its annual budget of between £2.6 million and £3.5m, mostly generated by the two journals it publishes, is spent almost exclusively on the global neuroscience community. It offers a plethora of funding opportunities, including fellowships, early career awards and travel grants.

Tracy Bale, from the University of Maryland’s school of medicine in the United States, took on the presidency of Ibro in early 2020. On its grant-giving ethos, she says: “We’re not exclusive in any way, shape or form. We are trying hard to get the money to people as opposed to trying to keep it from them.”

Bale wants her arrival to mark a change of direction for the funder, and this has already been indicated by a strategy published in December. “We had never had a strategic plan in 60 years of this organisation,” she says. The new strategy is all about “bang for buck”, she adds. “Are we ensuring that every dollar that goes out of Ibro is accounted for and is being as impactful as it can be?”

Communication breakdown

One of Bale’s first steps was to hold an external review, including a survey across the membership at all levels, which generated some uncomfortable results. Ibro’s members are neuroscience societies from around the world, so any neuroscientist with an official affiliation to a society is also a member. “What was clear from that survey was that communication and transparency were really bad,” she reports.

“To the individual applying for any particular grant, how it was being evaluated was not clear,” she says, highlighting how that can lead to suspicions of bias. “So the process has to be more open: communication and transparency have to be much, much improved.”

With this fresh impetus, Ibro is now working on giving more feedback to applicants. Bale says that with any scientific community, there are those “in the know” who have experience and know how to make the most of the resources available, and those who don’t. To reduce that inequality, Bale wants constructive feedback to be given rather than a rejection. This could be as simple as offering resources on how to write a grant proposal for those with less experience, she explains: “We’re working on that right now so that it’s a more defined official process.” 

Regional accountability

One of the strengths of Ibro is its regional structure. While some funding opportunities are available globally, many are defined by the six regional committees, which are in Africa; the Asia-Pacific; Latin America; the Middle East and north Africa; Europe; and the US and Canada. This also poses challenges since the regional committees are run by academics without administrative support.

Bale says that she doesn’t want Ibro to be a top-down society but instead wants to empower the regional committees to respond to the needs of their communities. She wants more members involved and for them to be more accountable.

Communication with the regional committees has, again, been problematic in the past, Bale says. “There really hadn’t been a regular way to communicate to say: here’s what we’re emphasising or focusing on, here’s how you can better tailor your budget, here’s what we’re looking for, here are some expectations.”

As a result, accountability has suffered. “What happens if we find out that we paid £25,000 and it was for training five students? What happens if we find out that all of the students who were accepted into the programme were white men?” Bale asks.

Increasing engagement

To tighten things up and change course, Bale is bringing in metrics for measuring how well Ibro’s money is being spent and what the outcomes are. One of the reasons this is important is to “ensure we don’t let people fall through the cracks”, she explains.

As an example, Bale points to Ibro’s Return Home Fellowships, which are aimed at late-stage postdoctoral researchers looking to return from overseas and set up a lab. “If we support them to return home and then they’re dropped, that was wasted money,” she says. “How do we continue to support them and mentor them? Because they’re likely to be in a situation where they don’t have a lot of mentorship around.”

Diversity is clearly of prime concern for Bale. She says that when regional committees put in budget requests for the meetings, schools, travel awards and other activities that they run, she also wants them to specify mechanisms for how they will ensure inclusion in those schemes.

But Bale is not starting from scratch on this topic. She says that most opportunities under Ibro’s centrally administered budget have an emphasis on under-represented and marginalised communities, and that some grants are available only to such individuals.

What it all comes down to is that Bale is looking to lead an organisation that better serves the interests of all its members. In her words: “Ultimately, what I’m looking for as an outcome of the change is engagement.” 

This is an extract from an article in Research Professional’s Funding Insight service. To subscribe contact sales@researchresearch.com