I'm currently in the process of thinking about submitting another ESRC grant proposal. To date, I have put in a few but without success. I'm not easily discouraged though and I have had a lot of good feedback (but no money!). Thankfully, I have been able to secure funding from other sources but the vital statistics from ESRC do suggest that I might need to up my game considerably - or switch to Socio-Legal Studies! What am I talking about? Success rates of course. The LSE Impact blog just did a post on this issue and the figures really are striking. So striking, in fact, that I felt the need to turn it into a chart. Just look at the data (click charts below). 39% success rate for Socio-Legal Studies and 0% success rate for Environmental Planning (among others).
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In relation to the number of submitted grants, Psychology is the clear category leader with 185, though the success rate in this category is just slightly higher than the average (16% compared to 14% average). The highest number of grants to any one category is in Sociology, with 16 awards (19% success rate) during the 2011-12 period.
See the full ESRC report here, where you can also find a break down of the figures by institution.
