2021 Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (HE-MSCA-PF-2021)

Antani
Posts: 7
Joined: Wed Mar 16, 2022 9:26 pm

Re: 2021 Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (HE-MSCA-PF-2021)

Post by Antani » Wed Mar 23, 2022 2:47 pm

Do you know if there is a private company/agency that can help you writing the MSCA proposal? (Except NCP)

behradei
Posts: 17
Joined: Mon Mar 07, 2022 5:28 pm

Re: 2021 Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (HE-MSCA-PF-2021)

Post by behradei » Wed Mar 23, 2022 2:56 pm

I got ejected too
Ef-Eng :88
Excellence 4
Impact 5
Implementation 4.5
My host was in the UK, now one of my friends asked me to reapply with a new host in Portugal which is a widening country!
Does anybody know how much much applying with a widening country host will increase my chance for MSC PF?

trina_80
Posts: 285
Joined: Fri Jan 08, 2021 9:41 am

Re: 2021 Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (HE-MSCA-PF-2021)

Post by trina_80 » Wed Mar 23, 2022 4:55 pm

Guys, does anyone who got the fellowship and has a UK host can share their current status on the signing of the grant agreement? Many thanks!

player
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Mar 22, 2022 5:43 pm

Re: 2021 Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (HE-MSCA-PF-2021)

Post by player » Wed Mar 23, 2022 5:50 pm

Fu Manchu wrote:
Tue Mar 22, 2022 7:08 pm
player wrote:
Tue Mar 22, 2022 6:01 pm
Hi all,

I lurked a bit this forum in the last 2-3 weeks waiting for the results and would like to thank the creators. I didn’t win the grant (3,8/3,8/4,4). I applied for first time and very likely I will not retry, as this year is busier for me. I worked on the proposal quite seriously between mid-May to mid-June and from very late August to the deadline and received decent feedback from my host; I know that many people devote much more time and having seen my proposal with clear eyes after the deadline, I knew that there were some flaws, was not very optimistic about the outcome and not very frustrated now. I’m writing only to share a few thoughts on the evaluation process – I see many colleagues frustrated from that especially about receiving a worse note after resubmission and regardless of their effort to use the feedback. I have some experience on decision processes (not only in research) and tried to understand the EC process. I feel that we have (at least) the following issues here:

1)The proposals must be evaluated quickly; reviewers must complete the task in a few weeks. They devote little time to each proposal and must decide about the grade in a short meeting. There is no further monitoring of the meeting’s decision. When people do things quickly and feel that there is no strict control on their decisions, superficiality can gain ground. In my case, the evaluation was not rushed (I felt that they read the proposal quite carefully), but since so many people complain about sloppy reviews, this seems to be an issue.

2)The proposals are not necessarily evaluated by direct experts in each field, but from people working in the same area more broadly. This is not an easy task. Therefore, participants are advised to write simply. However, research often deals with complicated ideas that cannot be easily analyzed in a very simple way nor can be smoothly understood by someone without a strong command in a particular subfield. This likely gives an advantage to people working on catchy topics (which attract the attention of outsiders) and to those working in more established disciplines (although interdisciplinarity is a target in theory). It is hard to expect a high-quality review on an interdisciplinary idea by experts combining a strong command on all its areas in a short time. These people are hard to be found and often are established scientists who will not evaluate MSCA proposals.

3) Resubmissions do not go to the reviewers who commented on the rejected version but to new reviewers. New people will have different interests/ methodological preferences and so on and no access (as far as I have understood at least) to the rejected version and feedback. Even if they had such access, to compare two drafts and evaluate changes (even more without a point-to-point response) is a very time-consuming task. The problem is obvious, but I don't see how the proposals can be evaluated by the same people given that the pool of reviewers changes from year to year and without introducing a stage of response by the applicant/evaluation of response which would delay a lot the whole process.

I feel that the main problem is the huge size of the task itself: the evaluation of about 9,000 proposals within a few months. I could think on various ways to improve the process (further monitoring of the panels’ decisions; evaluation of each proposal by experts working especially in this area; introduction of a response process for resubmissions), but all these options require even more time and I don’t know how many participants would be happy to wait much more than now for the consideration of their application. In sum, it is obvious that the process has big problems, but is tough for me to imagine a more reliable alternative which would not cost much more time.

Just a few thoughts – best wishes to all of you and congrats to those who won.
Thanks for sharing.

However, I think there are more feasible solutions to the third aspect.

1- Write a specific section that deal with last year's comments in the proposal - it can be a summary of what was changed and where these changes are.

2- The reviewers should read the former evaluation reports. It takes 10-15 minutes to read one at most.

3- Give more time to the evaluators. We all received the results in March and nobody died because of it. It happened because of the delay - deadline was only in October and usually it is on September. Why not make the deadline in September and the results in March?

These are all small changes that can help the reviewers and the evaluation itself.
This could be an option, but (except of a longer process) would also (officially, because the practical distinction is already here as you can retry with the same idea/host etc.) create two groups of applicants: 1)those starting from scratch; 2) those who should only address comments and could only improve their score in each application. This would create an even more discouraging condition for first-time applicants and only those willing to remain in the process for 2-3 years would apply. I suppose that the EC wants to avoid that.

AlexDB
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Mar 22, 2022 6:55 pm

Re: 2021 Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (HE-MSCA-PF-2021)

Post by AlexDB » Wed Mar 23, 2022 6:30 pm

Greyrock wrote:
Mon Mar 21, 2022 10:40 pm
fourtimesfailedmsca wrote:
Mon Mar 21, 2022 7:59 pm
CatTaotao wrote:
Mon Mar 21, 2022 6:24 pm


I also have the same problem. Do you mind also send me? Many thanks!
And to me please
Same here, please. That section is a mystery, to me at least.
Would really appreciate it if those with high impact could share that bit with me too. Many thanks!

liukank
Posts: 49
Joined: Wed Sep 08, 2021 11:01 am

Re: 2021 Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (HE-MSCA-PF-2021)

Post by liukank » Wed Mar 23, 2022 8:05 pm

hubirai wrote:
Tue Mar 22, 2022 6:55 am
mc_paranoia wrote:
Tue Mar 22, 2022 3:33 am
hubirai wrote:
Mon Mar 21, 2022 11:39 pm


Thanks for the support, I am actually not angry at not getting the grant, because as I began to see people with 94.4 on the reserve list, I accepted the fact that I did not get it, what is bothering me is the comments, and how unprofessional they were. Yes , you might not like the idea, and try to find some weak points, but you do not invent them such as claiming that the applicant has intermediate reading skills in his native language, or did not use archeology for understanding early modern diplomatic practices. .
I know nothing about any of those subjects, but from what you wrote, yes, you have every right to ask for reevaluation. Your English is impeccable, let alone a native language. From all we could gather, it depends to a very important degree on who you get as an evaluator, same as with publications. Of course that some projects will be appealing to anyone who reads them, but how is it possible that one project gets 90 one year and 70 another; if it's not sad one could even find a "humor" in that.
Thanks for the support, my disappointment is not about not getting the grant but about the impunity of the evaluators in making such comments. As you said, it is even tragicomic to get 4.6 from excellence one year and to get 3.4 the next without a change other than addressing the gender part better which they noted. I think making the previous year’s evaluation available, and paying more money for the evaluators’ time, so that they do not simply skim through, but actually read what is in front of them, and to bring some limitations to the evaluators as well for misconduct might improve the system in the long run.
Hi there, I feel you. Last year I scored 88.6, got a seal of excellence and agreed with the weaknesses found by the evaluators. This year I addressed the issues, improved the application, changed hosts choosing people there were more relevant to the project and the best in the field. Guess what? Got 58.4. Can you believe that? One year my project gets a seal of excellence and the next one I am bellow threshold and prevented to apply again. I honestly think it is scandalous and I already asked for a reevaluation, but I am expecting nothing out of it. The only explanation is that, last year they liked the project, this year for some reason they hated it. And based in these unprofessional and non-objective criteria they decide the life of other people. I have no words.

karbonnom
Posts: 54
Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2022 2:33 pm

Re: 2021 Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (HE-MSCA-PF-2021)

Post by karbonnom » Wed Mar 23, 2022 8:48 pm

trina_80 wrote:
Wed Mar 23, 2022 4:55 pm
Guys, does anyone who got the fellowship and has a UK host can share their current status on the signing of the grant agreement? Many thanks!
Hi, current status according to the grant manager in Uni is do nothing, they will do everything. Even my PI does not need to do anything, it will be institutionally managed. The latest update to me is it seems like funding will come from UKRI, btw. Again, they said I should not worry and they will try to have everything ready so that I can start by my preferred start date. Hope that helps!

Spain-1
Posts: 30
Joined: Mon Mar 21, 2022 7:15 am

Re: 2021 Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (HE-MSCA-PF-2021)

Post by Spain-1 » Wed Mar 23, 2022 9:40 pm

liukank wrote:
Wed Mar 23, 2022 8:05 pm
hubirai wrote:
Tue Mar 22, 2022 6:55 am
mc_paranoia wrote:
Tue Mar 22, 2022 3:33 am

I know nothing about any of those subjects, but from what you wrote, yes, you have every right to ask for reevaluation. Your English is impeccable, let alone a native language. From all we could gather, it depends to a very important degree on who you get as an evaluator, same as with publications. Of course that some projects will be appealing to anyone who reads them, but how is it possible that one project gets 90 one year and 70 another; if it's not sad one could even find a "humor" in that.
Thanks for the support, my disappointment is not about not getting the grant but about the impunity of the evaluators in making such comments. As you said, it is even tragicomic to get 4.6 from excellence one year and to get 3.4 the next without a change other than addressing the gender part better which they noted. I think making the previous year’s evaluation available, and paying more money for the evaluators’ time, so that they do not simply skim through, but actually read what is in front of them, and to bring some limitations to the evaluators as well for misconduct might improve the system in the long run.
Hi there, I feel you. Last year I scored 88.6, got a seal of excellence and agreed with the weaknesses found by the evaluators. This year I addressed the issues, improved the application, changed hosts choosing people there were more relevant to the project and the best in the field. Guess what? Got 58.4. Can you believe that? One year my project gets a seal of excellence and the next one I am bellow threshold and prevented to apply again. I honestly think it is scandalous and I already asked for a reevaluation, but I am expecting nothing out of it. The only explanation is that, last year they liked the project, this year for some reason they hated it. And based in these unprofessional and non-objective criteria they decide the life of other people. I have no words.
Please, could you tell me how did you ask for re-evaluation? I am in the same situation.
Thanks!

trina_80
Posts: 285
Joined: Fri Jan 08, 2021 9:41 am

Re: 2021 Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (HE-MSCA-PF-2021)

Post by trina_80 » Wed Mar 23, 2022 9:45 pm

karbonnom wrote:
Wed Mar 23, 2022 8:48 pm
trina_80 wrote:
Wed Mar 23, 2022 4:55 pm
Guys, does anyone who got the fellowship and has a UK host can share their current status on the signing of the grant agreement? Many thanks!
Hi, current status according to the grant manager in Uni is do nothing, they will do everything. Even my PI does not need to do anything, it will be institutionally managed. The latest update to me is it seems like funding will come from UKRI, btw. Again, they said I should not worry and they will try to have everything ready so that I can start by my preferred start date. Hope that helps!
It does! Thank you so much for your answer!

liukank
Posts: 49
Joined: Wed Sep 08, 2021 11:01 am

Re: 2021 Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (HE-MSCA-PF-2021)

Post by liukank » Wed Mar 23, 2022 10:14 pm

Spain-1 wrote:
Wed Mar 23, 2022 9:40 pm
liukank wrote:
Wed Mar 23, 2022 8:05 pm
hubirai wrote:
Tue Mar 22, 2022 6:55 am


Thanks for the support, my disappointment is not about not getting the grant but about the impunity of the evaluators in making such comments. As you said, it is even tragicomic to get 4.6 from excellence one year and to get 3.4 the next without a change other than addressing the gender part better which they noted. I think making the previous year’s evaluation available, and paying more money for the evaluators’ time, so that they do not simply skim through, but actually read what is in front of them, and to bring some limitations to the evaluators as well for misconduct might improve the system in the long run.
Hi there, I feel you. Last year I scored 88.6, got a seal of excellence and agreed with the weaknesses found by the evaluators. This year I addressed the issues, improved the application, changed hosts choosing people there were more relevant to the project and the best in the field. Guess what? Got 58.4. Can you believe that? One year my project gets a seal of excellence and the next one I am bellow threshold and prevented to apply again. I honestly think it is scandalous and I already asked for a reevaluation, but I am expecting nothing out of it. The only explanation is that, last year they liked the project, this year for some reason they hated it. And based in these unprofessional and non-objective criteria they decide the life of other people. I have no words.
Please, could you tell me how did you ask for re-evaluation? I am in the same situation.
Thanks!
Just go to the link you will find in the letter of rejection. In your follow up session you have this letter and the evaluation documents.

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