Research Animations 101, Part 3: How to get funding
It's time for the third part in our series explaining the basics of how to make an animation to communicate your research.
Hello all,
In last week’s episode of our Research Animations 101 series, I addressed the all important topic - how much does it cost to make research animations? This week, we’re diving into a key follow-up question: how do you secure funding to produce them?
As a reminder, here’s where we’re at with the series so far:
‘How can you secure funding for animations?’
‘How can you make sure your animation gets seen by the right people?’
Let’s Start at the Very Beginning…
We’re often contacted by research groups near the end of their projects. They’ve generated interesting findings and realise that an animation could effectively communicate these to their target audience.
This sounds promising—but if it’s the first time they’re thinking about animation or video, it may already be too late.
The best time to get funds for dissemination activities is before a project has even started, at the grant application phase.
Grant recipients are expected to spend funds according to the budget they specified in their application. That means, if you don’t request a specific budget for dissemination there won’t be funds for outreach when you need it.
This might sound obvious, yet many projects still fail to request enough for dissemination. Here are the top three reasons we’ve encountered:
The planning team didn’t fully consider dissemination needs when applying and left it out.
They did think about it but weren’t sure how much they would need, so they just stuck a random, conservative figure in the application.
They knew how much they’d need but feared that a higher ask might hurt their funding chances.
In short, lack of time, lack of knowledge, and fear of rejection are the main culprits.
What makes this doubly frustrating is that funders are generally willing to support activities that help research reach the right audience.
And I don’t just mean assigning a couple of thousand pounds for open access publishing.
That isn’t going to move the needle to ensure your research has real impact.
How much is too much?
If “fear of rejection” is holding you back from requesting a proper animation budget, consider this example.
We’re currently working with a research project that’s relatively small - the total value of the grant is £250,000.
The PI came to us when they was putting the application together to find out how much they should ask for. We discussed the project, assessed their requirements and came up with a quote for two animations.
An initial animation to help recruit participants for the study.
A second to share the project’s findings at the end.
They submitted a request for £15,000 to cover the cost of the two animations, the request was approved and the grant was secured.
In that case, the funder agreed to 6% of the total budget being spent on dissemination.
I’m not saying that’s always going to be an appropriate amount to ask for. But it goes to show that funders are willing to offer sizeable budgets for dissemination activities if they feel that the outputs will significantly improve the project’s chances of having an impact.
How to apply
Each application is likely to be different but here are a couple of things to consider…
How many animations might you need?
Think beyond simply sharing results at the end. What other ways could an animation be useful?
An animation can be an effective way to help recruit participants.
An animation can also communicate progress part way through a multi-year study.
It’s useful to note, if you need more than one animation, costs per video may decrease, as you can often use shared assets and only conduct one discovery phase.
The best thing to do is reach out to an animation producer when you’re putting your application together to discuss your requirements and they should be able to give you a ballpark estimate for costs to include.
Naming a specialist creative partner
If the application provides space to do so, identifying a creative partner in your application shows funders that you’ve done your homework and have the necessary specialist support to ensure that the animation or animations have the desired impact.
What if I didn’t ask for sufficient funds when I applied?
If the horse has already bolted and you failed to secure funding for dissemination outputs when you applied for your grant, there’s still hope.
Some funders have pots of money for dissemination and engagement activities. These can be accessed when your project is already underway or nearing completion.
One day we hope to be able to put together a little list of those funds with information about when and how to apply for them but until then it’s worth contacting your funder’s support services to find out if there’s a dissemination grant you can make use of.
How we can help
At Orinoco, we specialise in creating animations to communicate research. We’ve done that for research groups and organisations all over the world.
Check out some examples of our work here.
So, if you’re planning or involved with a research project and you think an animation will help it get the reach it deserves, do get in touch.