The impact of funding deadlines on personal workloads, stress and family relationships: A qualitative study of Australian researchers

Abstract

Objective: To examine the impact of applying for funding on personal workloads, stress and family relationships. Design: Qualitative study of researchers preparing grant proposals. Setting: Web-based survey on applying for the annual National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Project Grant scheme. Participants: Australian researchers (n=215). Results: Almost all agreed that preparing their proposals always took top priority over other work (97%) and personal (87%) commitments. Almost all researchers agreed that they became stressed by the workload (93%) and restricted their holidays during the grant writing season (88%). Most researchers agreed that they submitted proposals because..