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

[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?

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.

Ah thank you! Yes the budget matches. Phew!

[liukank]

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.

Well, from my personal experience, last year my application only had 1 weakness in part 1, which was my limited track record. I had two babies since finishing my PhD but this was not considered as a valuable constraint by the evaluators (and I was the one giving birth and nursing said babies by the way). This made me lose the fellowship (had only two weaknesses in part 2 and none in part 3), so I wouldn't be so confident on rigour and criteria. Believe when people say it's a lottery because it is. As someone said here before, once you have a perfect application you fall into a hole of subjectivity that it's only by pure chance that you may get it, rather the evaluators were in a good day or not.

[AR Khojasteh]

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?

Don't worry! It should update to 36 once your status changes from Evaluation to Ranking.

[liukank]

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.

Well, from my personal experience, last year my application only had 1 weakness in part 1, which was my limited track record. I had two babies since finishing my PhD but this was not considered as a valuable constraint by the evaluators (and I was the one giving birth and nursing said babies by the way). This made me lose the fellowship (had only two weaknesses in part 2 and none in part 3), so I wouldn't be so confident on rigour and criteria. Believe when people say it's a lottery because it is. As someone said here before, once you have a perfect application you fall into a hole of subjectivity that it's only by pure chance that you may get it, rather the evaluators were in a good day or not.

And I'm not saying this to discourage anyone, is just to show you that if you don't get the fellowship it's not because your project sucks. There is a lot of subjectivity in the process and it might be a long term project. You might have to try multiple times until you get the hand on the way to write the project or until your project falls into the hands of the right person.

[Meowiingtons]

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?

Hi applied for GF and have the exact same scenario so don't worry about it.

[skm]

"duration":"24","phase":"EVALUATION","proposal":true,"finished":false},

[skm]

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.

Well, from my personal experience, last year my application only had 1 weakness in part 1, which was my limited track record. I had two babies since finishing my PhD but this was not considered as a valuable constraint by the evaluators (and I was the one giving birth and nursing said babies by the way). This made me lose the fellowship (had only two weaknesses in part 2 and none in part 3), so I wouldn't be so confident on rigour and criteria. Believe when people say it's a lottery because it is. As someone said here before, once you have a perfect application you fall into a hole of subjectivity that it's only by pure chance that you may get it, rather the evaluators were in a good day or not.

In my understanding, what I intended to convey regarding the constraints is that the track record serves as an indicator suggesting whether the proposed project can be completed independently by the proposer. Providing flexibility to the constraints is not within the guidelines, and it should not be anticipated. Simultaneously, even if the track record is limited, aligning the proposal workload, including technical knowledge, with the existing track record is crucial. Ultimately, if the evaluator adheres to the guidelines, a favorable score and funding can be expected.

Based on my experience on two previous occasions, I have observed a correlation between the quality of proposal writing and my scores. The proposals were poorly written, resulting in lower scores. I am eager to see if this trend continues this time..

All the best, anyway. Sorry. this is not to discourage, rather only my point of view. This might change.... !!!

[watermelon]

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.

Well, from my personal experience, last year my application only had 1 weakness in part 1, which was my limited track record. I had two babies since finishing my PhD but this was not considered as a valuable constraint by the evaluators (and I was the one giving birth and nursing said babies by the way). This made me lose the fellowship (had only two weaknesses in part 2 and none in part 3), so I wouldn't be so confident on rigour and criteria. Believe when people say it's a lottery because it is. As someone said here before, once you have a perfect application you fall into a hole of subjectivity that it's only by pure chance that you may get it, rather the evaluators were in a good day or not.

It's my first time applying for MSCA. So, I really don't know what to expect. I made sure that every single guideline was addressed in my application. Before I started writing the proposal and during the writing process, I read so many research articles on writing MSCA, some successful applications, listened to many YouTube videos of how to write an MSCA application, and so on. I spent a significant amount of my writing time in understanding what and how to write. I also deliberately made sure to make every section within Part B1 and B2 reader-friendly. These were some of the steps I took. Of course, I believe that a lot depends on whether reviewers see the project as worthy. A well-written proposal without a worthy project (in the eyes of the reviewers) might not get funded, I presume. Really hoping the days will move faster and we will get to know the results soon.

[applyapplyagain]

Hi everyone, I have a question for more experienced applicants about the timing of the results. Will all applicants be notified by the end of the day on February 13, if things go like last year? I ask because, if I got the fellowship, I will have very limited time to make a decision whether to accept it - I have other offers pending that I'll have to decline. So even a day or two could make a huge difference.

[liukank]

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.

Well, from my personal experience, last year my application only had 1 weakness in part 1, which was my limited track record. I had two babies since finishing my PhD but this was not considered as a valuable constraint by the evaluators (and I was the one giving birth and nursing said babies by the way). This made me lose the fellowship (had only two weaknesses in part 2 and none in part 3), so I wouldn't be so confident on rigour and criteria. Believe when people say it's a lottery because it is. As someone said here before, once you have a perfect application you fall into a hole of subjectivity that it's only by pure chance that you may get it, rather the evaluators were in a good day or not.

In my understanding, what I intended to convey regarding the constraints is that the track record serves as an indicator suggesting whether the proposed project can be completed independently by the proposer. Providing flexibility to the constraints is not within the guidelines, and it should not be anticipated. Simultaneously, even if the track record is limited, aligning the proposal workload, including technical knowledge, with the existing track record is crucial. Ultimately, if the evaluator adheres to the guidelines, a favorable score and funding can be expected.

Based on my experience on two previous occasions, I have observed a correlation between the quality of proposal writing and my scores. The proposals were poorly written, resulting in lower scores. I am eager to see if this trend continues this time..

All the best, anyway. Sorry. this is not to discourage, rather only my point of view. This might change.... !!!

You mean your previous experience with MSCA? Because this is not how this bid works. You can see two identical applications in different years having the most disparate scores possible (talking again based on my personal experience). In this fellowship track record is supposed to demonstrate also your productivity, how much you published and this should align with a very subjective criteria that no one knows what it is. How many publications as sole or principal author should one have after say, 2 years of PhD? And how many if there was a career break? Or is this criteria made by comparison: how many publications the average postdoc has in said years of experience, so on and so forth. You see, there is no fixed number, no fixed rule, it depends on the good will of evaluators and here is the "lottery" factor that we are talking about. You can write a perfect application and have a perfect CV and still not get it. In the same way, you can have an average CV and your project can have a few shortcomings and you may get it. I've seen both situations happening and this is what applicants need to be aware of.
And, providing flexibility IS explicit within the guidelines, just read it carefully. Career breaks need to be acknowledged exactly for this reason, so the evaluators can access one's productivity and capacity based on their effective year of work and experience.