The lives of most social researchers are dominated by the recurrent need to produce research proposals. This is particularly so for contract researchers – people who must raise their own salaries in addition to the direct costs of the research. Between 1976 and 1984 contract research employment in English universities increased by 76 per cent. In 1982, when the first proposals for the study described in this book were being written, contract researchers made up a quarter of the UK academic workforce. Half of those surveyed in a 1984 study had no job to go to at the end of their current contract, and the majority were on contracts of less than three years (Advisory Board for the Research Councils 1989). As a report on the terms and conditions of social research funding in Britain put it in 1980:

In addition to their limited-contract employment, all researchers operate within what Basil Bernstein (1984) has called a ‘culture of impermanence’. This imposes isolation from other researchers and academic staff, and a unique rhythm, sequence and deadlines resulting from the funding process.

For contract researchers, a research proposal is essentially a job application: failure of the proposal to secure funding means unemployment. For researchers whose contracts do not require the continual re-financing of their own jobs, the research proposal plays an important role as professional justification: the measure of a ‘good’ researcher is the number of research proposals successfully funded; or, to put it another way, the ‘failure’ to raise money is an easy invitation to professional criticism.