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

[phoenixV]

Hi all!

Congratulations to all who got funded and I share the sorrow of those who did not.

First of all, just to let you know, in case you missed it, the cutoff and percentages for this year are out today at the following page, in "Call updates" area (you can find it on the menu at the left side) : https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tende ... 2-pf-01-01.

Myself, I was submitting my second try this year for the EF-LIF panel and managed to get 90.8% and land in the bitter-sweet reserve zone
My experience from both tries is that having an experienced host plays a huge role in getting most of the points, especially in the impact chunk. I think there is indeed a big luck part in terms of who reviews your proposal, particularly because relatively "small" losses in points in each part, can eventually translate to not getting the fellowship in the end.

Hope you are all well and don't stress too much about it, there are always other routes to take!:D

[Taha2021]

Hi all!

Congratulations to all who got funded and I share the sorrow of those who did not.

First of all, just to let you know, in case you missed it, the cutoff and percentages for this year are out today at the following page, in "Call updates" area (you can find it on the menu at the left side) : https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tende ... 2-pf-01-01.

Myself, I was submitting my second try this year for the EF-LIF panel and managed to get 90.8% and land in the bitter-sweet reserve zone
My experience from both tries is that having an experienced host plays a huge role in getting most of the points, especially in the impact chunk. I think there is indeed a big luck part in terms of who reviews your proposal, particularly because relatively "small" losses in points in each part, can eventually translate to not getting the fellowship in the end.

Hope you are all well and don't stress too much about it, there are always other routes to take!:D

Thanks for the info!! I was very frustrated thinking that if I had gotten the same result as last year I would be on the waiting list...now I know it's not true hahahaha =)

[triad_Mon]

This year's review seems "fake", there is nothing personal about it, it's extremely generic comments that seem copy-pasted from the manual. Also the 3.5 in every section feels kind of odd. I don't know, I think something is off.

My supervisor said exactly this: "Typical menu replies from a list that they put when they don't want one proposal to pass."

Maybe looking at the thresholds list, we'll find that this year they gave the reviewers instructions to be more cautious with giving points. But since last year, I keep getting the impression that all replies are from a list, and the decision to 'pass' or 'cut' one proposal, or leave it to luck is between them. That is, we will not know the real reason, and it could be anything, including lots of personal bias from the reviewers, and whether they like the host or not.

For me, all the proposals that had one specific host inside either passed or scored high. The one who did not have this host got really unfair treatment. Also, last year, all my scores were 'round': 4.0/5.0/4.0 = 85% exactly threshold for seal of excellence. In fact the list is this:

Included as host: Passed
Included as external collaborator: Seal of excellence
Alternate, more specialized host: Rejection

I don't want to focus on this or that problem of the MSCA. I think that in general, the EU should consider updating the opportunities they give to post-docs.

[captcha]

What about the net salary of the postdoc fellowships ? For me is not clear how much the selected researcher will effectively receive in the bank account. Doing a quick search using the word "salary" someone said that receives 2800 euros after taxes and whatsoever discounts.

[Anxi23]

Hi! Rejection here with 58.6 and asking for re-evaluation mainly because I received some comments that were not even relevant to the proposal and it looks like that my proposal was reviewed following a checklist. I also received 2.9 and 3 in the last sections while last year I scored 4.5 and 5 respectively (overall score 81% with useful comments from reviewers) and I used the same structure, I even improved these parts following the example of a successful proposal which scored 98% last year. On the magic link my status was always in evaluation. Congrats to the winners!!!!

[MilliBee]

Hi, guys!!!

Any news about the UK as the host institution?
I've heard very bad things as that if you are funded by the UK you lose your 'title' of MSCA researcher fellow.
Is it true?
I'm shocked

[Frydendahl]

This year's review seems "fake", there is nothing personal about it, it's extremely generic comments that seem copy-pasted from the manual. Also the 3.5 in every section feels kind of odd. I don't know, I think something is off.

My supervisor said exactly this: "Typical menu replies from a list that they put when they don't want one proposal to pass."

Maybe looking at the thresholds list, we'll find that this year they gave the reviewers instructions to be more cautious with giving points. But since last year, I keep getting the impression that all replies are from a list, and the decision to 'pass' or 'cut' one proposal, or leave it to luck is between them. That is, we will not know the real reason, and it could be anything, including lots of personal bias from the reviewers, and whether they like the host or not.

For me, all the proposals that had one specific host inside either passed or scored high. The one who did not have this host got really unfair treatment. Also, last year, all my scores were 'round': 4.0/5.0/4.0 = 85% exactly threshold for seal of excellence. In fact the list is this:

Included as host: Passed
Included as external collaborator: Seal of excellence
Alternate, more specialized host: Rejection

I don't want to focus on this or that problem of the MSCA. I think that in general, the EU should consider updating the opportunities they give to post-docs.

I have submitted 3 proposals myself, and been involved in the submission of about 5 other proposals of friends.

I absolutely feel there was an element of the reviewers sitting together and going "do we want this guy to pass or not?" and then basically engineering the score to get the desired outcome for my review this year. Previously I feel I have seen quite personalized comments and fairly detailed reviews, while this year it was all a bunch of boilerplate stuff and with scores seemingly not matching the written comments very closely (at least compared to previous reviews). I don't know if it's a matter of the host or not, I think perhaps it's more a matter of just being lucky and getting reviewers who actually like your proposal and get excited about your idea (obviously this depends a lot on field). If they don't, they will just shuffle you off as quickly as possible, and basically the score is meaningless. I.e., reviewers make up their mind if a proposal should be supported or not within a very quick cursory read, rather than actually fully reading the proposal in detail and assigning the scores point-by-point, with then the best proposals getting funded as intended.

I've also now experienced many times the reviewers 'inventing' issues to complain about, but which are not at all a problem. They basically read the text very quickly, and without a full technical understanding of the material they arrive at a mistaken interpretation and put it like this kind of 'gotcha' in the weaknesses (I've tried the same now many times in regular peer-review for my research papers). Unfortunately, without the ability to submit a detailed response/appeal letter to the reviewers' decision, you are basically always at the mercy of a reviewer understanding the technical details of your proposal correctly. It again contributes heavily to the "lottery" aspect of the process.

[spes]

still my status

Your proporsal number is on the website name. If you attempted to hide it in the shaded area you should delete your post

What is the proposal number for? Are there risks in showing it? I shared it with my supervisors (outgoing phase and ingoing phase obviously) because it is written in the rejection letter (we are studying the comment’s reviewers).

[Fu Manchu]

Hello everyone!

My case: I applied last year for the first time and got above 90. This year, with the same proposal and a couple of improvements, I got 85.00%. I really thought that I would get a better score, but this time the reviewers did not like exactly the part that previous reviewers loved...

In any case, I wanted to mention to all the people that got the seal of excellence that there are other options. Last year, I got the seal and used it to apply for one of these special calls and I got a position. So look for these calls (they are real opportunities!).

https://research-and-innovation.ec.euro ... er-msca_en
https://www.gea.mur.gov.it/Bandi/YoungResearchersSoE

Some of them will open soon =)
So even if this year you don't get the MSCA, keep in mind the seal for this or next year.

and Congrats to all the winners! =)

It happened something similar here.

I cannot recall exactly the total score, but in 2021, I scored 4.9 in impact.

Last year it was 4.2/4.7/4.2 - a slight decrease in impact and in the whole score.

This year I scored 5/4.3/5. My impact part was pretty much the same in all three years. Actually, I did almost no corrections this year in the whole project, just a small thing in my methodology.

I am not sure if it helped, but I changed the keywords in my proposal, so I could narrow it to just people who actually know about the subject. I had a horrible experience with a national agency in Belgium in which most of the reviewers did not like my proposal. The exception was the only reviewer exactly from my field of study (and they were cruel enough to put this imformation in the evaluation).

Anyway, there are many good scholarships through Europe: Humboldt (I got that as well) in Germany, FWO in Belgium, Leverhulme and British Academy in the UK, NWO in the Netherlands, Esprit FWF in Austria... They even had one very similar to the Marie Curie in Switzerland. I tried most of them in the last 4 years. I think a topic about other scholarships would help people in despair. Marie Curie hit me hard a couple times as well, so dont feel bad about it - I know it is almost impossible. This is an unfair game, but usually we do have other options to maximize our chances.

[skm]

What about the net salary of the postdoc fellowships ? For me is not clear how much the selected researcher will effectively receive in the bank account. Doing a quick search using the word "salary" someone said that receives 2800 euros after taxes and whatsoever discounts.

Just 2800 after taxes? Ooooooh. In the budget and some guidance it mentioned somewhere around 6000 . Am I wrong???

Fellowship should not be taxed in my view.