Niels, the best way is always to be very specific - you hardly can raise funds for broad or general purposes. Draft a full-fledged Business Plan describing precisely the 'issue to solve', the steps thatneed to be taken to get there, the operating etc. environment, and the yield (or 'return on investment'). I have helped raise funds in my day, let me know if I can possibly help.

Niels, the best way is always to be very specific - you hardly can raise funds for broad or general purposes. Draft a full-fledged Business Plan describing precisely the 'issue to solve', the steps thatneed to be taken to get there, the operating etc. environment, and the yield (or 'return on investment'). I have helped raise funds in my day, let me know if I can possibly help.

Chris,

Thank you for your reply and valuable insight as well as your offer to help.

I agree completely with what you are saying. It is important that the research is suitably focused and to demonstrate that the PI has thought through the process of how to go about conducting the research.

What I am having particular difficulties with is presenting a strong case that the research is important and has potential in solving real world problems. For example, in drug research or medical physics, the benefits of research to society might be easy to qualify and quantify. For theoretical physics or mathematics this could be much more difficult to do. What are some strategies to deal with this difficulty when applying for funding.

(I am assuming I am not the only one that is having difficulty with this)

Niels, if your research is likely to lead to useful applications, you can in principle be funded. 

Also bear in mind that people like e.g. Yuri Milner have been voluntarily supporting stellar physicists who make a difference, to the tune of several million dollars each, but you have to establish credentials & demonstrate positive impact on society (or disruptive headway in the field.) Private industry can be interested as well, and therefrom the wonted funding entities who service private industry.

In mathematics, there are quite a few Institutes that can be interested, sometimes however often at the cost of hiding your research and of your yielding up IP rights -depending on what your domain of application is.

As I said, your best bet is - hinging on what your focus is - drafting a BP and then flogging it to the right folks. If your focus however is either too vague or too confidential, you'll run into real difficulties in finding funding through conventional means.

Chris,

Thank you for another insightful answer.

My problem is not so much finding potential sources of funding but rather I would like to know how people attract funding when there research is NOT likely to lead to useful applications.

One area that I am interested in is topological electromagnetism. I would like to know to what extent elementary particles may be modeled by "knots of light". Although I think this is a very interesting area to research I do not see any immediate applications (although I am aware there may be applications of knots and votex-like structures in condensed matter physics). I do however know other people have researched similar ideas in the past (solitons for example). no doubt some of these studies were supported by some grant. How then to justify such research and attract funding when the potential applications may NOT be immediately obvious?

Similarly people researching say early universe cosmology may have a hard time coming up with real world applications of their research (I assume). Of course this doesn't make the research any less worthwhile. I just wonder how such research programs attract funding.

Niels, I quite understand your problem, fundamental research is essential in any society - with the added bonus that historically, fundamental research with no immediate visibility towards any useful applications has always turned out to actually be essential in the end.

The issue is that the usual funding avenues are not geared towards that kind of research, especially in this day and age. In the private sector, a few operators still do that kind of funding (IBM, perhaps Google) but they're very few. A few public institutions (at respective national levels) may still help, but it's a bit of an obstacle course in an age when budgets are tight and even a fair deal of research with immediate impact goes unfunded. The EU in Brussels has a few programs, but given the short-sightedness of the granting bodies and the fierce competition for scarce funds, trying that road may be frustrating.

Another approach is to approach HNWI's , but the issue here is access, because they're constantly so very solicited by all kinds of folks and they have learnt to put up barriers. China has very many of those, you might want to try that road ..... 

The first link below gives some specific examples of how people handle similar requirements (in the NSF grants it is known as broader impact).

The second link gives some general advice on writing the broader impact part of the grant.

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/39168/are-there-examples-of-successful-nsf-mathematics-proposals-available-anywhere

http://sociobiology.wordpress.com/2012/12/22/how-can-i-write-an-excellent-broader-impacts-section/

Chris,

Thank you for a third insightful comments and for suggestion potential sources of funding. Hopefully these answers will not only be useful to myself but also others.

Artur,

Thank you for the links. I will take a close look at them! It is always good to see some specific examples.

Henk,

Hartelijk bedankt for your reply. I completely agree. We are very fortunate to have/had a job that we love and are passionate about. I am not sure who would downvote your answer but please don't leave the discussion because of it.  Vriendelijke groet!

From my personal naive perspective, there are two kinds of advance in science. One kind of research facilitate our life making everything easier and less pain. Another kind of research expand our understanding of the universe we live in, which could have some real impact that we just do not know yet. The most significant advances in science often came as the second kind. When it first appears , it is just pure advancement academically. But history has proved that after some time, the second kind of research would evolve into first kind of research.

We do not know anything about second kind of research so that we do not know possible impact of it on society, but we do know it will impact. It is also true that second research would not have instant effect on society but it will be in a long term. That is why a lot of developed and developing countries put so much emphasis on education and fundamental research.

Perhaps start with the question "Why do I need research funding?"  Computer time?  Funds to support grad students or port-docs?  Summer salary?  Expectations for tenure? Desire for a pay increase? Travel expenses?  Journal page charges?" Please note that I am giving USA-appropriate answers.  Once you have have that answered, you can tell where to advance next in terms of writing a justification.

A possible 'way out' is to extend our research for covering modern financial engineering issues. Just think that ~320000 people pay about $20000/year in order to have access to the so called 'Bloomberg terminal'. So, they have money and willingness to pay, if they find something useful. And remember: It's a black box, just runs and no publication at all.

Other solutions, like Modern Antoinette' funds, sorry I meant EU and Brussels bureaucratic programs, are just for people that are lobbyists, not scientists.

[And imagine to live in Greece where all professors are 'lifetime long', until their retirement and of course they don't do errors...]

Niels,

In theoretical physics, currently the pressure for conformity is enormous. You can therefore safely assume that your funding proposal will undergo a conformity check, as opposed to a quality check. You should use that to your own advantage.

Thus speaking, if one or more of the following things can be said of your research, then it will likely be seen as "valuable":

If any of these is the case, you should emphasize that in the paragraph on the value of the intended research. The referee will most probably look at your funding proposal from the perspective "how does this advance my own research area?"

On the other hand, if your intended research is not strictly within the framework of modern physics, then do not waste your time trying to get funding through any of the regular channels. Unless you are a tenured professor at an Ivy League university (or something like that), your funding proposal - regardless of its true scientific quality! - will get a bad review if your intended research is in any way not in line with modern physics. You will then have to find alternative ways for funding.

I asked an entirely legitimate and serious question, and do not approve of Smid's answer.

The other half of this is "Why do you want the money?" Need money to do work.  Enhance summer salary -- an American pattern; Ido not know about Europe. Am supported on soft money..no grant -> no salary.  Administration demands or expects you to apply. (This leads to the 'center grant proposal' for say $10 million, with an 0.01% chance of getting the grant, but the proposal looks really good on paper.) etc.

Historicalkly, at least in the US, granting agencies for pure science are open to unconventional work, even radically unconventional, if it is presented in a  way that makes the author appear solid.  Note, e.g., NASA funding research on the Alcubiere device (a faster than light spaceship drive). For example, my polymer research -- core thesis: deGennes' ideas on polymer solution dynamics are completely wrong -- never had funding problems related to what I was proposing.

Marcoen,

Thank you for your insightful comments. I agree with what you say. For my PhD it did some non-mainstream research which I enjoyed a lot but I do realize now that it makes it more difficult to get results published and also more difficult to get funding.

I am trying to get into some more mainstream fields now and I think I have some worthwhile ideas. However at the same time it is not clear to me how my ideas fir into the 3 points you mention. Perhaps that needs to be my focus.

George,

Thank you also for your answers. Your question of "Why do you want the money?" is indeed a valid and important one. Personally, I am getting a salary regardless of whether I secure funding or not. This is my first academic job and my University offers a research development fund that can be applied for. The aim is to help staff establish and develop their research with the hope of being able to secure external funding in the future.

My research is purely theoretical and so does not require any specialized equipment or time on a supercomputer or telescope. Finding would allow me to visit some international collaborators and would also be good in terms of career development and promotion.

In a previous research proposal the feedback that came back was: how can this be applied to real world problems?, and why not collaborate and write papers via Skype? This feedback made me think and wonder how others in the field of pure mathematics or theoretical physics go about applying for funding.