MSCA RESERVE LIST 2021

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

Re: MSCA RESERVE LIST 2021

Post by trina_80 » Fri Jun 24, 2022 12:49 pm

gigi-7 wrote:
Fri Jun 24, 2022 12:01 pm
Wow, thank you all for sharing so many info.
Qube I didn't quite get if you know for certain (from official sources) that this is the way how EU will redistribute the funds or if that's your thoughts on that.

On another note, from what I am reading on the FB grups, lots of people have not signed their GAs yet, and assuming we still have to wait for all the GAs to be signed before being contacted, we will have to wait a bit more...
Thank you, gigi-7! In my mind, it makes no sense to wait for all the GAs to be signed. They could easily start contacting at least most people on the reserve list. But it may very well be that they're waiting for that... If so, yes, there's still a lot of waiting ahead for us, at least if the portal is any indication - "funded projects" so far 526. And we have to get to 929 (1156 main list - 227 successful candidates with UK hosts) :roll:

gigi-7
Posts: 41
Joined: Mon Mar 21, 2022 10:47 am

Re: MSCA RESERVE LIST 2021

Post by gigi-7 » Fri Jun 24, 2022 3:01 pm

trina_80 wrote:
Fri Jun 24, 2022 12:49 pm
gigi-7 wrote:
Fri Jun 24, 2022 12:01 pm
Wow, thank you all for sharing so many info.
Qube I didn't quite get if you know for certain (from official sources) that this is the way how EU will redistribute the funds or if that's your thoughts on that.

On another note, from what I am reading on the FB grups, lots of people have not signed their GAs yet, and assuming we still have to wait for all the GAs to be signed before being contacted, we will have to wait a bit more...
Thank you, gigi-7! In my mind, it makes no sense to wait for all the GAs to be signed. They could easily start contacting at least most people on the reserve list. But it may very well be that they're waiting for that... If so, yes, there's still a lot of waiting ahead for us, at least if the portal is any indication - "funded projects" so far 526. And we have to get to 929 (1156 main list - 227 successful candidates with UK hosts) :roll:
I am only assuming we have to wait because I have read somewhere in this blog that there is no way to decline the offer once you have received the invitation to sign the GA. So they will have the total amount of drops out (excluding the UK ones) only once the GAs signature is over.

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

Re: MSCA RESERVE LIST 2021

Post by trina_80 » Fri Jun 24, 2022 4:01 pm

gigi-7 wrote:
Fri Jun 24, 2022 3:01 pm
trina_80 wrote:
Fri Jun 24, 2022 12:49 pm
gigi-7 wrote:
Fri Jun 24, 2022 12:01 pm
Wow, thank you all for sharing so many info.
Qube I didn't quite get if you know for certain (from official sources) that this is the way how EU will redistribute the funds or if that's your thoughts on that.

On another note, from what I am reading on the FB grups, lots of people have not signed their GAs yet, and assuming we still have to wait for all the GAs to be signed before being contacted, we will have to wait a bit more...
Thank you, gigi-7! In my mind, it makes no sense to wait for all the GAs to be signed. They could easily start contacting at least most people on the reserve list. But it may very well be that they're waiting for that... If so, yes, there's still a lot of waiting ahead for us, at least if the portal is any indication - "funded projects" so far 526. And we have to get to 929 (1156 main list - 227 successful candidates with UK hosts) :roll:
I am only assuming we have to wait because I have read somewhere in this blog that there is no way to decline the offer once you have received the invitation to sign the GA. So they will have the total amount of drops out (excluding the UK ones) only once the GAs signature is over.
And you are right to assume that. I was just thinking that:
- given that the delay is caused from the EU side, they already have a pretty good idea of how many dropouts there are. Those who have already sent the documentation will most likely sign the GA and not drop out at this stage;
- they will need to allocate some time to the signing of the contracts to people from the reserve list (and there will, hopefully, be quite a few). From this new batch of successful candidates there will, again, be a few dropouts, so, again, they will have to contact more people from the reserve list. I'm just saying that there will not be a clear ending to this until they completely close the process for this call. So they might as well take it step by step.

That being said, they announced quite a lengthy "technical maintenance" on Monday and Tuesday, so maybe they will start sending the emails then. At least I'm embracing that idea to help me get over yet another waiting-weekend. :roll:
Last edited by trina_80 on Fri Jun 24, 2022 4:08 pm, edited 2 times in total.

evantsa
Posts: 32
Joined: Tue Mar 08, 2022 11:57 am

Re: MSCA RESERVE LIST 2021

Post by evantsa » Fri Jun 24, 2022 4:05 pm

Dear Qube thank you very much for the long explanation. How did you get all this info about the way budget will be distributed? I remember in a conversation I had with a Greek NCP, she told me that available funding (if drop off or UK projects rejection) is not redistributed in any way and that it will remain in panel it was initially allocated to. This was however, before the meeting of the Program Committee (June 15th).


Qube wrote:
Thu Jun 23, 2022 9:26 pm
I'm sorry that it is confusing, I will try to explain again but differently:

If you look at the cutoff score table, you see that the success rate (also a percentage) is pretty much 15.something % across all panels (in either IF or GF). The budget is distributed to the scientific panels according to the number of applications to that panel, and this happens for each of the two funding programs (IF and GF). Thus the success rate is approximately equal for all European fellowship panels. And because of the significant reduction in the GF budget (higher than the reduction of IF), the success rates (the percentages that are given in the table) are roughly the same for GF and IF.

Now Brexit happens. All UK proposals drop out. which should affect all panels a little different, but roughly 20 percent of the budgets are available for redistribution. When UK proposals are out, the success rates change: the number of grants has changed, but also the denominator, the total amount of applications. The Program Committee has gathered last week to decide how to redistribute the available funds in the panels of each program. Note that the total available funds of the two programs will remain the same, there is no money flowing from the IF to GF or vice versa. This happened to enforce roughly the same success rates across all panels within each program. And as much as it hurts me personally*, I do think it is a fair approach. Overall the success rate will increase, because 20 percent of the total applications has dropped out, and the number of awarded grants will stay roughly the same.

I use roughly a lot, since the variations in the numbers across the panels are influenced by: 1) the budget of each proposal 2) proposals can't be partly funded 3) some panels have very few applications, that make statistics harder to enforce (see GF-ECO).

The question that remains is: why are the cut off scores so different for each panel?
There has been a lot of discussion already on how the proposals are evaluated and some have gotten very upsetting results by having their resubmitted proposals being reevaluated with a diminishing score (The opposite happens quite a lot too). So we do know that there is a lot of subjectivity and maybe also rivalry in the evaluations, and as much as I hate it, it is a random factor that you should take into account with letting these evaluations get to you personally. I do get that this is hard, for me too, since these grants can make or break your career and it is hard not to take that personally.

*For some who understand stuff in math: quick calculation of my position in my panel: before june 14: success rate was 19 proposals/119 applicants *100 = 16% my ranking was nr 23. After june 14, my ranking is 20, but the total number of applications is 119*.8 = 95. So I need an increase of the success rate from 16% to 21% to get the funding. The success-rates are expected to rise from 15.5 to 15.5*1.25 = 19.4%, from which you can deduct that only 18 or 19 of this panel will get funding. So no additional grants will be awarded in this panel and maybe even one less, which means that one person will miss out in this panel in favor of a person in another panel. For me 1 or 2 people have to actually drop out. That is a lot and not likely to happen in such a small panel. Note that red indicates an estimate.
melk wrote:
Thu Jun 23, 2022 6:59 pm
Many thanks for sharing this Qube and good luck for your application! You had the amazing score, you should get funded!

I am not sure if I understand correctly the system to re-distribute the funding... If they will try to reach the same success rate in each individual panel, it means that people who are lower on the reserve list in the panel with low success rate (e.g. LIF or PHY with the success rate about 12%) will be contacted before people who are ranked first in ECO or CHE panel (15-16%)?
If having the similar success rate in each panel is so important for EC, why they didn't take it into consideration when generating the main list in March...?


Qube
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Jun 23, 2022 5:58 pm

Re: MSCA RESERVE LIST 2021

Post by Qube » Fri Jun 24, 2022 7:11 pm

Hi All, the info on the redistribution came from my ncp before the 15th. I don't know how much of that is their interpretation of what will happen or actual guidelines. I had contact with them after the 15th with a question about that and they didn't correct me or themselves. Obviously we are not "suppose to know".

The waiting is quite intolerable, but I also understand that this is uncharted territory for them too and they want to handle it as fair as possible.

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

Re: MSCA RESERVE LIST 2021

Post by trina_80 » Sat Jun 25, 2022 11:55 am

Qube wrote:
Fri Jun 24, 2022 7:11 pm
Hi All, the info on the redistribution came from my ncp before the 15th. I don't know how much of that is their interpretation of what will happen or actual guidelines. I had contact with them after the 15th with a question about that and they didn't correct me or themselves. Obviously we are not "suppose to know".

The waiting is quite intolerable, but I also understand that this is uncharted territory for them too and they want to handle it as fair as possible.
I agree that this is a difficult situation, but I do not understand all the secrecy. An update from the EC on the whole situation from time to time (such as after the meeting on June 15), would have been much appreciated and a sign of respect towards the hundreds of people affected by this.
Again, thanks so much for sharing all the info, Qube!

DagS
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu May 05, 2022 3:56 am

Re: MSCA RESERVE LIST 2021

Post by DagS » Sun Jun 26, 2022 9:16 pm

Qube wrote:
Fri Jun 24, 2022 7:11 pm
Hi All, the info on the redistribution came from my ncp before the 15th. I don't know how much of that is their interpretation of what will happen or actual guidelines. I had contact with them after the 15th with a question about that and they didn't correct me or themselves. Obviously, we are not "suppose to know".

The waiting is quite intolerable, but I also understand that this is uncharted territory for them too and they want to handle it as fair as possible.
Hi,
I also have the information that the funding will go back to the panels. In my wild guess, that's also how it is "just". Otherwise, as was pointed out earlier, the reserve listings would change and it would be unfair, meaning: If three UK applicants are in front of me and they suddenly, for example only "give" two places to my panel back because they newly weight between the panels, I suddenly wouldn't get my "deserved" place. That doesn't make any sense and is also kind of difficult to justify. I think they have to strictly give the 227 places (or more if the higher budgeting is taken into account for the UK) back the panels.
This would mean as my NCP thinks, that they will go most deeply of all panels into the SOC, as this is where the most UK successful applicants always are.
But, probably, guesswork won't help us to endure the situation better and even make us more confused!

Another thought is that, actually, I don't feel they want to wait for much longer. You also have to consider that this delay is bad for the MSCA Program and prestige as this year's batch is not really getting out there and producing research and they need to get things going and finalized, but again, just my feeling.

Good luck everyone!

Qube
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Jun 23, 2022 5:58 pm

Re: MSCA RESERVE LIST 2021

Post by Qube » Mon Jun 27, 2022 1:21 am

Hi DagS,

It depends what constitutes fairness. I think that the most fair is to have a distribution of funds which is proportional to the number of applications within that panel weighted by the cost of each proposal, such that everyone has the same chance of getting their proposal funded.
The funds are initially distributed in this way. If for one reason or another there are many UK proposals in one panel, this panel would get much more funding relative to other panels. This will lead to skewed success-rates which in my opinion isn't fair.

The ranking on the reserve list doesn't change, just the number of invites on the reserve list. It is not guaranteed anyways that you get funding if you are first on the reserve list.

fingers crossed!




DagS wrote:
Sun Jun 26, 2022 9:16 pm


Hi,
I also have the information that the funding will go back to the panels. In my wild guess, that's also how it is "just". Otherwise, as was pointed out earlier, the reserve listings would change and it would be unfair, meaning: If three UK applicants are in front of me and they suddenly, for example only "give" two places to my panel back because they newly weight between the panels, I suddenly wouldn't get my "deserved" place. That doesn't make any sense and is also kind of difficult to justify. I think they have to strictly give the 227 places (or more if the higher budgeting is taken into account for the UK) back the panels.
This would mean as my NCP thinks, that they will go most deeply of all panels into the SOC, as this is where the most UK successful applicants always are.
But, probably, guesswork won't help us to endure the situation better and even make us more confused!

Another thought is that, actually, I don't feel they want to wait for much longer. You also have to consider that this delay is bad for the MSCA Program and prestige as this year's batch is not really getting out there and producing research and they need to get things going and finalized, but again, just my feeling.

Good luck everyone!

Anna1234
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Jun 13, 2022 12:25 pm

Re: MSCA RESERVE LIST 2021

Post by Anna1234 » Wed Jun 29, 2022 1:04 am

The number of funded projects just jumped to 759! Getting closer!

ENG-MSCA-2020
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Jan 30, 2021 2:16 pm

Re: MSCA RESERVE LIST 2021

Post by ENG-MSCA-2020 » Wed Jun 29, 2022 7:31 am

Hi everyone.
I checked the list of funded projects and found that some of the winners with a UK host were also on the list. I do not think this is good news for us. Please check out these three projects.

Project ID: 101066152
https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tende ... 90/details

Project ID: 101060757
https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tende ... 90/details

Project ID: 101063852
https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tende ... 90/details

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