help with costs of research? (postage/stationary etc) any ideas appreciated!

pinginal

I know it might not be much but there are plenty of offers for free stationery on the freebies board.

foreign_correspondent

Hello everyone and thanks for your input!

Unfortunately as I am surveying people from accross the UK; delivering the surveys by hand is not an option!!

I am surveying a specific group of people diagnosed with an illness about the social impact of this condition. I am not distributing this myself, but am working with a support group (a charity) who have been kind enough to offer to distribute this to a section of their membership. They have offered the services of their volunteers to address envelopes etc. (Obviously I cannot use their database directly, data protection, confidentiality etc.) However, because of this I am limited in methods I can use as it has to fit in with them too, so an online/emailed survey is out.

Understandably, they have asked me to provide the cost of the stationary and postage stamps, which is absolutely fair. I have no quibbles about this at all; I suppose I was just wondering if there were any sources of funding for this sort of thing? if not I am happy to stump up the costs myself, athough I am a bit skint I am sure it will be worth it in the long run! I have had a look for reasearch grants on the internet, but most seem to be for larger research projects, or require you to apply the year before you aim to start.

I just wondered if I had missed something blindingly obvious! (would be just my luck to be paying out totally unawares, whilst everyone else is using the 'university stamp fund' or something!!)

p.s yes it is a masters dissertation
pinginal - thanks I i'll have a look over there never thought of that!

melancholly

so which department are you doing your masters with? that will help work out what funding options you could try.

foreign_correspondent

Hi Melancholly, its with Health and Life Sciences

melancholly

i don't know much about HLS funding - most of the options i would look at fall under psychology/medicine. i think that what you want is an one off 'small grant'....

most university departments have small grants (up to £500) available for research - your supervisor will know about that. since you are already working with a charity, it would be difficult to get a different charity to give money....

i really think your supervisor needs to be doing this for you - that is their job after all! you should not be expected to fund this work yourself. most lecturers have a 'consumables' fund each year so they should be able to provide you with some of the money at the very least!

one other thing to think about is that you are sending this information out as a representative of the university. that means that university headed paper for any letters is probably appropriate. through your supervisor, this should be able to be provided for you.

foreign_correspondent

super, thanks melancholly! :beer: I have emailed my supervisor so will await his response. Useful thought about headed paper too - I will run that past him and see what he thinks. Do you work in HE by any chance?

melancholly

foreign_correspondent wrote: »

super, thanks melancholly! :beer: I have emailed my supervisor so will await his response. Useful thought about headed paper too - I will run that past him and see what he thinks. Do you work in HE by any chance?

phd student actually! but at my third uni so have a fair idea of how things tend to work by comparing them all. where i am at the moment, you are required to send things out on uni headed paper using a letter that has been approved by an ethics committee. that way you have support in case anyone objects to your questions and they can check that what is being sent out shows the university in a professional light.

foreign_correspondent

aha, ok, thanks melancholly - I am just awaiting the ethical approval - nothing about headed paper has been mentioned by them so far, but I will ask if it doesn't come up! (sounds like a good idea, I guess it also gives participants some reassurance that it is part of an approved research project, not just someone being nosey!)
thanks for your help