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Paper short abstract

We examine a research funding application as a site where power relations, precarity, and mismatched expectations converge, asking how the pursuit of "fundability" and explorative research can come at the expense of the temporary and junior staff drawn into a project's planning and execution.

Paper long abstract

This presentation addresses an increasingly common manner of securing research funding in neoliberal academia: through research applications. Through a case discussion, the aim is to show how the process of making a project proposal can crystallize various power relations, precarities, freedoms, silencings, and mismatched expectations. It addresses how the process of crafting the proposal, and working to make the project more fundable and explorative, might be done to the detriment of the increasing number of temporary staff potentially involved, with the project effectively becoming a white elephant for junior scholars, both in its planning and potentially in its execution.