“Increasing funding for CA research is key for growing the field to expand our knowledge about how interaction works. For early career scholars, it is also a way to establish a research trajectory and – frankly – get a job. For these reasons, I was pleased that the DMCA conference included a panel on research grants. I believe this is something we should talk about more, as grant writing is a skill and as such, something we can learn. The main part of the session consisted of questions and answers, which put focus on general issues related to grants as well as more CA-specific ones, such as How do you get funding bodies to realize the benefits of a CA study? (As a researcher of institutional interaction my answer is: focus on an actual (communicative) problem that organizations struggle with, figure out how CA can help, and include elements that add value, for example training based on the findings.) With the focus on funding in this panel, the benefits of the digital conference format were also clear, as conference travel often depends on landing grants. By providing a low-threshold, vibrant meeting place to share all aspects of research, the organizers of the DMCA conference have therefore done the community a great service!”
Marie Flinkfeldt
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“I was extremely happy to take part in the keynote session on research funding and share my and hear from colleagues’ experiences about work involved in writing grant and fellowship applications. There’s no question that the EMCA community benefits from discussing the challenges and sharing best practices regarding funding. We need more of this in the future! It was a delight to see so many junior researchers attending the event. Overall, the DMCA conference was a show of power of the global EMCA community. What made me particularly happy was the possibility to see and meet so many new and rising talents in EMCA who are working on so many new and exciting questions and taking EMCA into the future.”
Pentti Haddington
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