Yet another grant proposal

Yet another grant proposal

I've been preparing yet another grant proposal for a research programme new to me. So, I've spent days reading yet more bold pronouncements, learning new acronyms, adapting my intentional and ambitions to new Procrustean frameworks. Why should I do that instead of research, instead of reading something I could learn from, instead of working out a problem and exploring new approaches? Who thinks up all this triviality? It gives the impression of direction and accountability but all it does is encourage conformism: yes-men and sycophants who inflate every new vogue -sorry, societal or scientific challenge- with the samen enthusiasm and apparent loyalty before moving on to the next opportunity to get money for old rope. It's a waste of time, my tax euros, of everybody's time and money. Just imagine that fiction was written like that, that every short story and novel followed the same template, that authors spent their time writing proposals instead of books. It would have been a much poorer world, with very few books worth reading - which is arguably the case with most scientific publications today. The worst is that they're turning me into a grumpy old man, despite my intention to stay playful and happy. I need to find a real solution to such inevitably time-wasting activities before long.

Premature satisfaction

Premature satisfaction 

One of the things that worry me in the current grants frenzy is the displacement of effort and satisfaction from actually doing the research to acquiring the funds for it. Especially with large sums and prestigious funding organisations, it seems that the main goal has become the getting of the grant itself. People work very hard to develop a convincing proposal, often anticipating too much, possibly already doing the research in their imagination, to convince everyone (and we are talking about various kinds of judges) that they are worth the chance. When the proposal is submitted, people may feel exhausted by the effort, even fed up with the subject. And if they're successful and manage to get the grant, the jubilation can be tremendous; it's as if the research is all done already and with resounding success. Actually doing the research and delivering the promise may become a secondary matter, an aftermath. After all, what most research organisations expect is results in practical, measurable terms: publications and money. The envisaged performance rarely ever counts. It's hard not to feel the anticlimax.

Filling forms

Filling forms

I've spent yet another day talking to people about research - or rather how we could fund research. Good intentions and willingness to make something of it all round but it melted down to filling yet another grant form, highly redundant and over-analytical. It's not easy making a distinction between research output and research results, deliverables, products, proofs of concept, demonstrations, pilots and all other near-synonyms. An officious young agent or official from the grant organisation, with full hipster insignia, was getting impatient with out lack of knowledge and understanding of their jargon. The group, large and varied, was confused and confusing, slow and difficult to move but in the end, with the help of tiredness, we managed to reach an almost satisfactory result. With growing impatience I tried to push ahead, making my voice heard a bit too often. I regret that; I prefer to be in the background and contribute at crucial points rather than pull the group towards any direction.

One could have called it a successful day in all. Even the travel (by Thalys train, a real joy despite the overcrowding) was relaxed and efficient. Still, I can't help feeling failed and betrayed. We talked with complete disregard for real research and its applications. If anyone in the group knew the state of the art in the areas involved, they didn't let on. What we had written could have been compiled by a high-school student doing a school project on the basis of a cursory Internet search. Weak, weak researchers: rather than doing our work properly and showing people what should and could be done, letting them gather round and forge great new things, we beg at the tables of the accidentally powerful and derive our research agenda from incoherent, incomplete and often obvious policy documents.

Crossroads

Crossroads

I started a recent research proposal with the bold statement that architecture is at a crossroads. My argument was that one could see it at the societal and professional level: many architects are unemployed or underemployed and buildings are being produced with the same mediocre methods, techniques and results for the last hundred years or so. Yet these problems are obscured by the stubborn attachment of architects to the same approaches and attitudes, as well as by local or temporary building booms, e.g. at high-demand areas like London or due to new, often public commissions relating to one-off events like the Olympic or to attempts to stimulate the construction business at times of economic crisis. Still, I claimed, it is undeniable that architecture and the built environment are not progressing at the same pace as other areas. This, I continued, is made abundantly clear at the scientific level: in many national and international research grant frameworks, such as Horizon 2020. architecture is absent from among the disciplines that benefit directly, despite that many issues and subjects in the same frameworks refer to urban environments and buildings, i.e. architectural products, as causes of societal problems as well as recipients of technological innovation.

Looking back at that text, I wonder how one recognises a crossroads. It presupposes first of all that architecture is following a path, possibly towards some end. I doubt that there would be consensus about that in architecture. Is there some progression from where we were e.g. in the post-World War II reconstruction period (an acknowledged high point)? Do we agree as to where we are going? I guess there are many opinions on that but I would be happier with a couple of substantiated views rather than temporary enthusiasm with this technology or that tendency. And if we manage to agree on the route we have been following, where are the crossroads? Which other intersecting routes do we encounter and when are the moments when we could take a decision? Here too one should expect a plethora of equally poorly substantiated options. And it's not just a matter of having too many different opinions in architecture, it's that we have so many aspects in architecture that need improvement. Each aspect seems to have its own evolutionary path and its presence among the priorities changes with the year; just think of the chequered history of sustainability in architecture.

So, in summary, we are not at a crossroads because there are no major roads, just a confused network of many paths. We have been following these paths in a haphazard way, reacting to opportunity and vogue rather than pursuing some well-defined and coherent goals. As for the future, even if we wise up and mend our ways, we may have to spend some more time following paths because there is no single road in front of us.

Perhaps more importantly, one should realise that metaphors have their dangers. They evoke powerful pictures that may explain a lot but the same pictures may also undermine the argument they are supposed to support.