2019 Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (H2020-MSCA-IF-2019)

[SimpaLif]

4th attempt for me! I don't think Cv was crucial any time! Proposal excellence was always the key-factor for my previous rejections! I hope this helps!

Exactly!

[SimpaLif]

They wrote "The publication record of the researcher is limited for their level of expertise"

Don't pay attention to the comment you received. The number of publications has no impact. However, there are always reviewers that are stupid and have not read the manual for evaluators.
Getting this fellowship is pure luck (whether or not you get reviewers that like your project and thinks is an excellent one).

I heavily doubt the number of publications has no impact. Everything you include or not include has an impact, you just have to weigh everything, and as you mentioned, he got reviewers (stupid or not) that considered it, so it had (has) an impact.

Additionally, the number of (first or corresponding) author publications is an easy evaluation method to see if the person might be better suited than others. Especially because most reviewers dont read everything in detail and things like this stick out easily

Publish or perish, that is sadly how it goes in science (even if MSCA claims to minimize its impact for the fellowhip)

Some winners have no citations at all. So CV is a plus, but excellence is the key!

[Kenniz]

Don't pay attention to the comment you received. The number of publications has no impact. However, there are always reviewers that are stupid and have not read the manual for evaluators.
Getting this fellowship is pure luck (whether or not you get reviewers that like your project and thinks is an excellent one).

I heavily doubt the number of publications has no impact. Everything you include or not include has an impact, you just have to weigh everything, and as you mentioned, he got reviewers (stupid or not) that considered it, so it had (has) an impact.

Additionally, the number of (first or corresponding) author publications is an easy evaluation method to see if the person might be better suited than others. Especially because most reviewers dont read everything in detail and things like this stick out easily

Publish or perish, that is sadly how it goes in science (even if MSCA claims to minimize its impact for the fellowhip)

Some winners have no citations at all. So CV is a plus, but excellence is the key!

I never doubted this. Most winners do have multiple publications though (at least in natural science, where its the essential part of your career).
if you had 2 identical proposals 1 with publications, one without, guess who gets it.

[megasphaera]

They wrote "The publication record of the researcher is limited for their level of expertise"

Don't pay attention to the comment you received. The number of publications has no impact. However, there are always reviewers that are stupid and have not read the manual for evaluators.
Getting this fellowship is pure luck (whether or not you get reviewers that like your project and thinks is an excellent one).

I heavily doubt the number of publications has no impact. Everything you include or not include has an impact, you just have to weigh everything, and as you mentioned, he got reviewers (stupid or not) that considered it, so it had (has) an impact.

Additionally, the number of (first or corresponding) author publications is an easy evaluation method to see if the person might be better suited than others. Especially because most reviewers dont read everything in detail and things like this stick out easily

Publish or perish, that is sadly how it goes in science (even if MSCA claims to minimize its impact for the fellowhip)

I agree with you, but only for other fellowships. Grants like EMBO, FEBS and so on, state that they consider publications as an indicator for excellence. For MSCA IF there are no indications that publications number is going to be considered. So if an evaluator take into account this, fall under the definition of stupid since there is a manual that tells them how to evaluate a proposal step by step.

[Kenniz]

Don't pay attention to the comment you received. The number of publications has no impact. However, there are always reviewers that are stupid and have not read the manual for evaluators.
Getting this fellowship is pure luck (whether or not you get reviewers that like your project and thinks is an excellent one).

I heavily doubt the number of publications has no impact. Everything you include or not include has an impact, you just have to weigh everything, and as you mentioned, he got reviewers (stupid or not) that considered it, so it had (has) an impact.

Additionally, the number of (first or corresponding) author publications is an easy evaluation method to see if the person might be better suited than others. Especially because most reviewers dont read everything in detail and things like this stick out easily

Publish or perish, that is sadly how it goes in science (even if MSCA claims to minimize its impact for the fellowhip)

I agree with you, but only for other fellowships. Grants like EMBO, FEBS and so on, state that they consider publications as an indicator for excellence. For MSCA IF there are no indications that publications number is going to be considered. So if an evaluator take into account this, fall under the definition of stupid since there is a manual that tells them how to evaluate a proposal step by step.

Why do you (have to) include your cv and publications then?
I totally agree that MSCA IF minimize the impact of publications, yet it can still be a deciding factor.

[megasphaera]

I heavily doubt the number of publications has no impact. Everything you include or not include has an impact, you just have to weigh everything, and as you mentioned, he got reviewers (stupid or not) that considered it, so it had (has) an impact.

Additionally, the number of (first or corresponding) author publications is an easy evaluation method to see if the person might be better suited than others. Especially because most reviewers dont read everything in detail and things like this stick out easily

Publish or perish, that is sadly how it goes in science (even if MSCA claims to minimize its impact for the fellowhip)

Some winners have no citations at all. So CV is a plus, but excellence is the key!

I never doubted this. Most winners do have multiple publications though (at least in natural science, where its the essential part of your career).
if you had 2 identical proposals 1 with publications, one without, guess who gets it.

Again, true for most of the fellowship. The way they decide among two equal fellowship is how muchbthe project is going to be helpful for the economic and scientific growth for EU.

[Kenniz]

Some winners have no citations at all. So CV is a plus, but excellence is the key!

I never doubted this. Most winners do have multiple publications though (at least in natural science, where its the essential part of your career).
if you had 2 identical proposals 1 with publications, one without, guess who gets it.

Again, true for most of the fellowship. The way they decide among two equal fellowship is how muchbthe project is going to be helpful for the economic and scientific growth for EU.

i am talking about (theoretically) identical proposals, except one with publications and one without. I know reviewers for MSCA and it is considered in cases where rankings are close

[MC2020]

Some winners have no citations at all. So CV is a plus, but excellence is the key!

I never doubted this. Most winners do have multiple publications though (at least in natural science, where its the essential part of your career).
if you had 2 identical proposals 1 with publications, one without, guess who gets it.

Again, true for most of the fellowship. The way they decide among two equal fellowship is how muchbthe project is going to be helpful for the economic and scientific growth for EU.

I agree with megasphaera. Evaluation process cannot be arbitrary.

[Kenniz]

I never doubted this. Most winners do have multiple publications though (at least in natural science, where its the essential part of your career).
if you had 2 identical proposals 1 with publications, one without, guess who gets it.

Again, true for most of the fellowship. The way they decide among two equal fellowship is how muchbthe project is going to be helpful for the economic and scientific growth for EU.

I agree with megasphaera. Evaluation process cannot be arbitrary.

Measuring the part of "scientific career so far" based on publications is all but arbitrary. In fact, it is the most suited method available

[Shapovalov]

I'm quite sure that the majority opinion here (that number of publications is not important, at least not officially) is absolutely and completely wrong. In fact, I would go so far as to call that a very silly point of view to have in academia.

In the guide for writing, it was clearly stated that your publication record is important. And you must highlight it. Especially to indicate that you are capable of carrying out the project if it gets accepted. What matters is for your field and for your level of expertise, is your publication record sufficient. Another important point is to judge your expertise in the area you want to carry out research in. The only way to showing this is your publication record in the area. Heck, the explicitly tell you to highlight the journals you published in and the conferences you presented in.

Several sources have compiled common positive and negative review points for proposals. And the publication and conference record was an important point in all of them (both positive and negative).

However, you can't compare the publication record of one person in Mathematics immediately after their PhD, and someone else in Biology 5 years after their PhD, and then make a conclusion on that. Both the field and the experience levels are very important.


And a quick search in the reviewers guide also says the exact same thing:

Don't penalize proposals if you think that the researchers' amount of publications is too low; however, you can penalize proposals if you think that the amount of publications is too low given his/her level of experience, and this may affect his/her professional development as an independent/mature researcher during the fellowship.

Source: https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/fi ... uators.pdf (This is the 2018 version)