2023 Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship(HE-MSCA-PF-2023)

[watermelon]

Hi all. I had just joined for a postdoc position last year, immediately after finishing my PhD. At the time of the MSCA application, I had one first-author and one middle-author paper. I have been a bit worried about publication record affecting MSCA outcome.

I looked through previous discussions on this. From what I gather, career stage is taken into account (?) while judging publication record. I was just wondering if applicants with track record similar to mine have previously got the funding, just to understand what my chances are. If any of you have info on this, could you please respond?

[PlasmaFuture]

Hi all. I had just joined for a postdoc position last year, immediately after finishing my PhD. At the time of the MSCA application, I had one first-author and one middle-author paper. I have been a bit worried about publication record affecting MSCA outcome.

I looked through previous discussions on this. From what I gather, career stage is taken into account (?) while judging publication record. I was just wondering if applicants with track record similar to mine have previously got the funding, just to understand what my chances are. If any of you have info on this, could you please respond?

As far as I understand from the information I have read, almost 90% of success depends on the desire of the reviewers. They can look at your CV in section B2 or skip this part. There have been successful cases with one published article. It's a lottery. I think it all depends on the reviewers. If they decide that they wish to award the fellowship, the application will be considered successful.

[watermelon]

Thanks for the answer!

[Dr.Honeywine]

Hi all. I had just joined for a postdoc position last year, immediately after finishing my PhD. At the time of the MSCA application, I had one first-author and one middle-author paper. I have been a bit worried about publication record affecting MSCA outcome.

I looked through previous discussions on this. From what I gather, career stage is taken into account (?) while judging publication record. I was just wondering if applicants with track record similar to mine have previously got the funding, just to understand what my chances are. If any of you have info on this, could you please respond?

As far as I understand from the information I have read, almost 90% of success depends on the desire of the reviewers. They can look at your CV in section B2 or skip this part. There have been successful cases with one published article. It's a lottery. I think it all depends on the reviewers. If they decide that they wish to award the fellowship, the application will be considered successful.

Lottery seems to imply all applications have equal chance of being granted. I assume there is a clear set of standard rubrics for evaluation. For all well-written applications that meet all the criteria, there could still be a chance factor. There could be practically little difference between 4.4 and 4.8 in each part part but that can translate into 88 or 96 in total. Regarding publications, I think it depends on the career development plan and career stage of the applicant. Aiming for professorship requires demonstration of competence in terms of publications.

[watermelon]

Hi all. I had just joined for a postdoc position last year, immediately after finishing my PhD. At the time of the MSCA application, I had one first-author and one middle-author paper. I have been a bit worried about publication record affecting MSCA outcome.

I looked through previous discussions on this. From what I gather, career stage is taken into account (?) while judging publication record. I was just wondering if applicants with track record similar to mine have previously got the funding, just to understand what my chances are. If any of you have info on this, could you please respond?

As far as I understand from the information I have read, almost 90% of success depends on the desire of the reviewers. They can look at your CV in section B2 or skip this part. There have been successful cases with one published article. It's a lottery. I think it all depends on the reviewers. If they decide that they wish to award the fellowship, the application will be considered successful.

Lottery seems to imply all applications have equal chance of being granted. I assume there is a clear set of standard rubrics for evaluation. For all well-written applications that meet all the criteria, there could still be a chance factor. There could be practically little difference between 4.4 and 4.8 in each part part but that can translate into 88 or 96 in total. Regarding publications, I think it depends on the career development plan and career stage of the applicant. Aiming for professorship requires demonstration of competence in terms of publications.

Yeah, that makes sense. Since publication record is dependent on a lot of factors: country in which PhD was carried out, funding that was available, the field of study, career stage, personal circumstances, etc. I can only hope that reviewers are aware of all these constraints that ECRs deal with and judge the applications accordingly. Of course, we do not give information on all or any of these constraints in our application. It has been an anxiety filled month, as my stay in Europe is dependent on me getting some form of funding or another postdoc position. So, I appreciate all your replies. Thank you.

[skm]

As far as I understand from the information I have read, almost 90% of success depends on the desire of the reviewers. They can look at your CV in section B2 or skip this part. There have been successful cases with one published article. It's a lottery. I think it all depends on the reviewers. If they decide that they wish to award the fellowship, the application will be considered successful.

Lottery seems to imply all applications have equal chance of being granted. I assume there is a clear set of standard rubrics for evaluation. For all well-written applications that meet all the criteria, there could still be a chance factor. There could be practically little difference between 4.4 and 4.8 in each part part but that can translate into 88 or 96 in total. Regarding publications, I think it depends on the career development plan and career stage of the applicant. Aiming for professorship requires demonstration of competence in terms of publications.

Yeah, that makes sense. Since publication record is dependent on a lot of factors: country in which PhD was carried out, funding that was available, the field of study, career stage, personal circumstances, etc. I can only hope that reviewers are aware of all these constraints that ECRs deal with and judge the applications accordingly. Of course, we do not give information on all or any of these constraints in our application. It has been an anxiety filled month, as my stay in Europe is dependent on me getting some form of funding or another postdoc position. So, I appreciate all your replies. Thank you.

1. Lottery : This impression by many of us, i think, might not be actually true. Unless the only chance of lottery could be due to 'reviewers' personal situation at the time actual evaluation. But this factor would generally be taken care, provided the reviewers follow the guidelines of ERC to avoid any stress, tired to see so many proposals etc. at the time of evaluation. The opinion written be @Dr Honeywine above is correct.

2. The constraints you outlined above regarding increasing the number of publications do not seem to concern reviewers, even if they were addressed in some way within the proposal. Ultimately, both quality and quantity play a role in forming a general impression. but this is very minor factor, as long as the proposal is written perfectly well.

3. The primary factor contributing to success in MSCA, in my estimation and strong intuition, is a "rigorous adherence to the format guidelines for assessing criteria." Reviewers often assess numerous proposals, and prolonged reading may lead to fatigue, potentially causing them to overlook certain aspects of a correctly written proposal. Despite this, if key words align with the evaluation criteria, they may capture the reviewers' attention, ensuring a proper evaluation. I hope this clarifies my point.

all the best. all are waiting for the D'day Feb 13/14 , 2024.

[watermelon]

Lottery seems to imply all applications have equal chance of being granted. I assume there is a clear set of standard rubrics for evaluation. For all well-written applications that meet all the criteria, there could still be a chance factor. There could be practically little difference between 4.4 and 4.8 in each part part but that can translate into 88 or 96 in total. Regarding publications, I think it depends on the career development plan and career stage of the applicant. Aiming for professorship requires demonstration of competence in terms of publications.

Yeah, that makes sense. Since publication record is dependent on a lot of factors: country in which PhD was carried out, funding that was available, the field of study, career stage, personal circumstances, etc. I can only hope that reviewers are aware of all these constraints that ECRs deal with and judge the applications accordingly. Of course, we do not give information on all or any of these constraints in our application. It has been an anxiety filled month, as my stay in Europe is dependent on me getting some form of funding or another postdoc position. So, I appreciate all your replies. Thank you.

1. Lottery : This impression by many of us, i think, might not be actually true. Unless the only chance of lottery could be due to 'reviewers' personal situation at the time actual evaluation. But this factor would generally be taken care, provided the reviewers follow the guidelines of ERC to avoid any stress, tired to see so many proposals etc. at the time of evaluation. The opinion written be @Dr Honeywine above is correct.

2. The constraints you outlined above regarding increasing the number of publications do not seem to concern reviewers, even if they were addressed in some way within the proposal. Ultimately, both quality and quantity play a role in forming a general impression. but this is very minor factor, as long as the proposal is written perfectly well.

3. The primary factor contributing to success in MSCA, in my estimation and strong intuition, is a "rigorous adherence to the format guidelines for assessing criteria." Reviewers often assess numerous proposals, and prolonged reading may lead to fatigue, potentially causing them to overlook certain aspects of a correctly written proposal. Despite this, if key words align with the evaluation criteria, they may capture the reviewers' attention, ensuring a proper evaluation. I hope this clarifies my point.

all the best. all are waiting for the D'day Feb 13/14 , 2024.

A succinct explanation, thank you! All the very best to you and everyone await results!

[Dr.Honeywine]

rigorous adherence to the format guidelines for assessing criteria
Perfectly describes my expectations too. Well said. By the way this year this board is rather quite.

[Berryfalcon]

Hi guys,
First time poster here. I applied for a GF with 24 months outgoing phase and 12 months return phase. But when I log in and go under “Follow up”, it says I requested funding for 24 months only. The sum requested matches the total 36 months however. I checked against my application.
Is that some sort of glitch or is there something I don’t know?

[liukank]

Hi guys,
First time poster here. I applied for a GF with 24 months outgoing phase and 12 months return phase. But when I log in and go under “Follow up”, it says I requested funding for 24 months only. The sum requested matches the total 36 months however. I checked against my application.
Is that some sort of glitch or is there something I don’t know?

It's a glitch, it's happening with a lot of people, don't worry. Most important thing is budget, if it matches 36 months then there is no problem.