2018 Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (H2020-MSCA-IF-2018)

[Fumansheh]

I'm in - how would u like to proceed?

I understand the problems, and the aim of reaching out to the Commission, but I'm trying to assess the most impactful way of doing this.
Maybe it isn't to reach out to the commission at all, but rather to write an article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed or an Op-Ed in Nature or something.

Any thoughts on this route? Would anyone here be interested in co-authoring such a piece with me?

[MC_F]

Hi SBM thanks for the information.
Generally in chemistry they put 15-20 candidates in the reserved list. but in an average first 2-3 candidates get offer. I dont have any idea in LIF. It should be more, but you are almost near the cut off till now as we knew (93.6).

Hi, just let me know if you have more info about this reserve list...I don't know whether to take it as a complete rejection or not..I think chances are very low...but mainly, do you know when people in reserve list get to know something? I mean, do we have to wait for a certain day to know or it is completely random?

I can't say I have a ton of information. This was the most in-depth I could find: https://mariecurieactions.blogspot.com/ ... -what.html

I.e., it might take them almost a full year to report back to you that you didn't get it, and usually only about ~5 people in each panel's reserve list actually get awarded a grant. So it's looking like pretty slim odds, unless a lot of people going the UK decide to drop out due to Brexit fears, or maybe an actual no-deal Brexit comes to pass.

Thanks for the info!

[Dajm]

Get the reviewers to do their job or hire better reviewers. Justify deducted points substantively. Reach consensus before combining individual scores, don't just pile individual comments together. Consider previous years evaluations in resubmission cases. Have an open mind, think outside disciplinary boundaries. There is a process to evaluation which is clearly detailed in the reviewer guideline (and yes it mentions having an open mind), which some reviewers are not following.

I'm all for this.
But what do you think the impact would be of addressing the MSCA people?
Would they just ignore it? Would they seek to punish us for the next call?

Agree. Big drops in resubmission scores should raise a flag in the process. They should also evaluate whether the applicant has addressed the weaknesses. Some quality assurance should also notice that strengths of the first application cannot be weaknesses the next year. Makes no sense.

I agree. I will try to put together a complaint (or whatever it is called) and post here for your suggestions.

Re: strengths/weaknesses, this year, half a point in the Excellence section has cost me the fellowship. There is a long list of strengths and a couple of minor points about weaknesses. One of the weaknesses is my "uneven competencies" (and it's potential impact on the project findings) in the language of my three case countries. I never mentioned anywhere in the proposal that my language competencies are "uneven" except that one is my native language and the others are not, and my CV clearly indicates that I have proficiency in all three languages - something that was highlighted as a major strength by last year's reviewers (in practise, one can carry out case comparisons with little or no knowledge of national languages at all). So, that (and many other) reviewer comment is wrong both factually and substantively. I can't imagine all three professional reviewers discussing this point and agreeing to list it as a 'weakness' of the project - it looks like there was no discussion and individual reviewers simply combined their comments into the eval chart without bothering to look at previous year's evaluation.

[Dajm]

I understand the problems, and the aim of reaching out to the Commission, but I'm trying to assess the most impactful way of doing this.
Maybe it isn't to reach out to the commission at all, but rather to write an article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed or an Op-Ed in Nature or something.

I am happy to co-author. I think both some kind of a complaint to MCSA and an op-ed is a good idea.

[storm30]

My project was also rejected....do you know the link with the scores for all proposals...I am curious until what score was the limit for funding? Also, do you know if we can make a contestation letter?

[CountZ]

Before we proceed with an article, can we evaluate the impact that his might have?

[Dajm]

Before we proceed with an article, can we evaluate the impact that his might have?

I personally would aim to simply bring the poor quality of reviews to MC people's attention and ask them to improve their benchmarking standards. A letter of complaint listing actual mistakes (no justification for deducted points, internal contradictions, stating that some crucial info is not there in the application while it actually is, etc.) would do the job. We met also suggest that introduce another level of quality control in cases where the score difference between rounds of assessment is, say, greater than 10. Forpublishable op-ed we would need to go further than that and make some kind of a meaningful statement about the subjectivity of research funding in general.

And I have no fear of retribution. As long as we are respectful and constructive I believe EC would want to listen and to strive to enhance transparency.

[IF ST LIF]

I understand the problems, and the aim of reaching out to the Commission, but I'm trying to assess the most impactful way of doing this.

Count me in, I was indeed thinking something similar, maybe a letter to an editor. We should highlight the weaknesses of their system. I would be happy to co-author...

[Fumansheh]

It could be good if we argue about the polices of research funding and specifically their way of making the evaulation process. We all agreed here that the evaluators are scientists and human, but the comments they made are really nonsense. To my understanding the EU funding schemes are a "high risk - high gain" but the manner of evulation is high risk - epic fail

Before we proceed with an article, can we evaluate the impact that his might have?

[AdinaBabesh]

Flagged? Why to be flagged?

I think the article should put together all the weak points the evaluation process contained (e.g. the sloppy evaluations, the contradictions, the too general/subjective language, the lack of arguments to support the statements, etc).

For examples, I have comments like: it is not sufficiently convincing, insufficiently clear, is not convincingly justified. What do the experts mean by that? What is sufficient and not sufficient, what is convincing and not convincing?

Before we proceed with an article, can we evaluate the impact that his might have?
Would we be flagged in future grant applications? [and if we do write the article, this fear of reprisal should be in it].
Would the article be strong enough to be a statement on research funding? Or would it appear like a bunch of rejected applicants complaining?