2022 Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (HE-MSCA-PF-2022)

[Rodolfo1988]

I don't know what to think anymore, but the European Commission has visited my LinkedIn profile 🫠 and I did not want to add more stress.

[michelef]

I don't know what to think anymore, but the European Commission has visited my LinkedIn profile 🫠 and I did not want to add more stress.

Haha nice, take it as a good sign, maybe they wanted to check who they are going to fund

[Rodolfo1988]

I don't know what to think anymore, but the European Commission has visited my LinkedIn profile 🫠 and I did not want to add more stress.

Haha nice, take it as a good sign, maybe they wanted to check who they are going to fund

Maybe. Or maybe they want to watch the "crazy trying MC" and have a laugh for a while.

[michelef]

I don't know what to think anymore, but the European Commission has visited my LinkedIn profile 🫠 and I did not want to add more stress.

Haha nice, take it as a good sign, maybe they wanted to check who they are going to fund

Maybe. Or maybe they want to watch the "crazy trying MC" and have a laugh for a while.

Well we're all crazy to try the MSCA...

[behradei]

I don't know what to think anymore, but the European Commission has visited my LinkedIn profile 🫠 and I did not want to add more stress.

Haha nice, take it as a good sign, maybe they wanted to check who they are going to fund

Maybe. Or maybe they want to watch the "crazy trying MC" and have a laugh for a while.

your status was the first one that changed to ranking, if I were you, I would take the LinkedIn visit as a good sign!

[AR Khojasteh]

I just have a question. Do reviewers evaluate excellence (or any other part) by only considering its section? or do they consider the whole package and then check excellence, impact, and implementation? For example, I have some implementation discussions in the first part.

[michelef]

I just have a question. Do reviewers evaluate excellence (or any other part) by only considering its section? or do they consider the whole package and then check excellence, impact, and implementation? For example, I have some implementation discussions in the first part.

That is a good question... My understanding is that each section is judged for the information it contains alone, i.e., it has to contain all the relevant information. So information relevant to implementation placed in the excellence part should not count for the judgment of the implementation part. But my understanding could easily be wrong, and the reviewers are humans and not machines, so they may count information appearing elsewhere just because they read it.

[pkourtes]

Hi guys (gender neutral one),

I strongly suggest to everybody read the following:
In the documents of MCSA, there are two docs where the evaluation procedure is described.
https://rea.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2 ... Europe.pdf
https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tende ... _he_en.pdf

Understanding the procedure will assist you with understanding the magic link mystery.

Based on my humble opinion and experience,
The EVALUATION means that:
a) the proposal is still UNDER REVIEW because either the experts haven't reached a consensus, or the proposal was returned to them to re-evaluate them. The latter occurs when there is a "difficult" case, where more effort is required to come up with a suitable score (either high or low, it doesn't matter). This also explains that some proposals may remain at evaluation until the end and get funded (because they went to the SEP system in the last day(s)).
b) If the consensus is given, (i.e., the review of the proposal is finalized), then the Evaluation means that the grade is UNDER the 70% threshold. So, the proposal is NOT forwarded to the SEP system in order to be ranked.

On the other hand, RANKING means that the Review has finished, there is a score above 70%, and it has been RANKED by the SEP system.
Beyond the above, there is not any other pattern. Since there is a special system (the SEP), it doesn't make sense to waste time and effort forwarding proposals above 70% to the SEP system in a hierarchical order (the SEP system will rank them anyhow). If there is info by getting an early rank (by early I mean days and not the hours' hypothesis), it may only be that the consensus was reached effortlessly (e.g., the pros and/or cons of the proposal were apparent to every expert reviewer). So, an effortless consensus may frequently occur in good proposals, but again, this may happen in moderate or low-quality proposals. So, again the ranking phase (earlier or later) is not an indicator of success or failure.

One solid conclusion is that since many of us have reached the Ranking phase, it means that the announcement will be on time (or earlier).

[CGN]

I just have a question. Do reviewers evaluate excellence (or any other part) by only considering its section? or do they consider the whole package and then check excellence, impact, and implementation? For example, I have some implementation discussions in the first part.

You need to check the evaluation criteria. In principle, each section is evaluated separately and you need to match the elements present in the evaluation grid. But in practice experts of grant writing suggest to make connections between sections and to summarize them in the first page and in the abstract.

My abstract for example starts describing the EU objectives on the topic, then introduces the scope of the proposal showing the innovation I am theorizing, then it mention the implementation of the project and the transfer of knowledrge. Finally, it shows the benefit for my career.

It was suggested to me to end the abstract like this:

[Name of the project] aims at building a new framework to [Scope of the project], with the aim of [...]. To build it, I will develop and test in [type of environments] the innovative concept of “[Name of the new theory]”: the [explanation of the theory], focusing on [number] Member States, [names of States]. In order to reach this objective, [Name of the project] has a strong interdisciplinary and intersectoral approach, bridging [name of different disciplines involved], taking into consideration [short explanation]. To ensure the successful implementation of these project goals I will conduct my research at the University of [Name of University] Department, with the guidance of Prof.[name of Prof], a leading scholar. This project will prepare me to become a tenured scholar and obtain advanced funding, strengthening my academic profile and allowing me to establish my own research group."

This kind of structure is found at the beginning of my proposal, together with objectives in bullets points, explaining also the methodology (very briefly). I also used cross references between different sections (to mark objectives, milestones, and deliverables), so that when you click the number of the section it brings you directly to the relevant part. I tried to guide reviewers and facilitate the understanding of the implementation throughout the whole proposal.

[Fred_Keningau]

I just have a question. Do reviewers evaluate excellence (or any other part) by only considering its section? or do they consider the whole package and then check excellence, impact, and implementation? For example, I have some implementation discussions in the first part.

See below. Copied from 2019 forum.
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Re: 2019 Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (H2020-MSCA-IF-2019)
Post by ENV2021 » Sun Jan 26, 2020 4:30 pm

Hi there,
a friend of mine is an MC evaluator and I would like to share with you what he explained to me about the evaluation process.
Three evaluators per proposal plus a chair that supervises the process. Each evaluator may evaluate a few proposals (10-15).
Each evaluator produces a report individually without sharing his comments; only when the three evaluators have submitted their reports it starts a consensus phase when the evaluators discuss their comments about the proposal. When they reach a consensus, and only then, they propose the score, always under the supervision of the chair. They are not allowed to see the evaluation report of the previous submitted proposal (if any) nor to know the old score, actually, this report remains undisclosed; the chair may ask the evaluators to rediscuss specific points if he considers it necessary.
Evaluators have to follow a specific point list and that is why it is so important to fill out the proposal including each and every point specified in the guideline, being specific, concrete. And you have to say the right things where they are expected to be in the proposal, not elsewhere in the text. If you state something in the "excellence" part that should have been stated in the "impact" part, well...that is your fault.
Regarding the CV, effectively the number of papers doesn't care, as it said in the guideline you may be penalised only if according to your research career you have not produced enough; evaluators check your CV to have an idea of what you have done before, especially to determine if your training programme is appropriate and if you effectively are going to learn something new which is the most important thing in this fellowship, besides project excellence. He also told me that many of the projects he reviewed were excellent but even in this case if you fail addressing all and each point they have to start to decrease the score, and few tenths of a point means getting or not the fellowship or even getting a bad score.
Said that..of course, subjectivity is impossible to remove but at least I think this is the most well-designed evaluation process I know.