In this episode of The Grant, I’m joined by Elaine Massung, founder of Academic Smartcuts, to talk about how researchers can become better at navigating the funding process. Elaine brings a rare combination of experience: PhD researcher, postdoc, former funding agency professional at EPSRC, and now independent trainer helping academics communicate more clearly and write stronger proposals. We talk about one of her biggest observations across all these roles: researchers often have strong ideas, but struggle to interpret them for the right audience whether that audience is a reviewer, a funder, a stakeholder or the wider public.

The episode moves through the practical mistakes Elaine sees again and again: not reading the guidance carefully, starting with the solution instead of the problem, recycling old proposal language, leaving impact too late and treating dissemination as a box-ticking exercise. We also talk about her training approach, including step-by-step proposal development, proposal audits and helping researchers understand what reviewers actually need to see. Finally, we dig into impact and visibility: why “high-impact journals, conferences and a workshop” is no longer enough, and how researchers can create more thoughtful strategies through podcasts, blogs, trade magazines, schools, stakeholder formats and other channels that actually fit the project.

Time codes:

01:32 Guest introduction and fly in