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

[watermelon]

Reading through all the replies, I am wondering about productivity measurement. Is it just the number of publications or will the number and amount of previous grants, including grants for conference travel, conference presentations, awards/prizes, etc. be taken into account? Additionally, as such an information is mainly presented in detail only in Part-B2, do we know if reviewers read through the CV?

[liukank]

Reading through all the replies, I am wondering about productivity measurement. Is it just the number of publications or will the number and amount of previous grants, including grants for conference travel, conference presentations, awards/prizes, etc. be taken into account? Additionally, as such an information is mainly presented in detail only in Part-B2, do we know if reviewers read through the CV?

They read everything, they have to. And all of this should count towards your final grade and they have to take into account.The weight they give to it, however, is subjective. They may think that, despite all that you are not the right person to be funded right now. Or they might think you look promising despite not having done much. That's it guys, and what I'm telling here is: do the best you can and don't feel too sorry if you don't get it. You may have to try again. It's not always your fault. Some things are sure to give you extra points like lots of publications or grants or international experience, but having these are not a guarantee of success.

[AR Khojasteh]

Reading through all the replies, I am wondering about productivity measurement. Is it just the number of publications or will the number and amount of previous grants, including grants for conference travel, conference presentations, awards/prizes, etc. be taken into account? Additionally, as such an information is mainly presented in detail only in Part-B2, do we know if reviewers read through the CV?

They have to read your CV to evaluate section 1.4. Last year, I applied immediately after my PhD and had only 2 journals published and the reviewers liked it. Please also consider they look at your track record based on the number of years after your PhD. If you are at a very early stage of your research,1-2 papers should be fine.

[watermelon]

Reading through all the replies, I am wondering about productivity measurement. Is it just the number of publications or will the number and amount of previous grants, including grants for conference travel, conference presentations, awards/prizes, etc. be taken into account? Additionally, as such an information is mainly presented in detail only in Part-B2, do we know if reviewers read through the CV?

They have to read your CV to evaluate section 1.4. Last year, I applied immediately after my PhD and had only 2 journals published and the reviewers liked it. Please also consider they look at your track record based on the number of years after your PhD. If you are at a very early stage of your research,1-2 papers should be fine.

Thank you for your answer! I also know someone who got the grant with only a couple of papers, but immediately after finishing PhD. Fingers crossed.

[CGN]

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.

How did you address this circumstance in your proposal?
In mine (funded with a score of 96, top 10% in my area of study), I clearly stated that the fellowship would be my unique chance to restart in academia (since the restart panel has been suppressed), due to the fact that I stayed 2 years on maternity leave and had to work in industry to support a child with special needs after my PhD.

[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.

How did you address this circumstance in your proposal?
In mine (funded with a score of 96, top 10% in my area of study), I clearly stated that the fellowship would be my unique chance to restart in academia (since the restart panel has been suppressed), due to the fact that I stayed 2 years on maternity leave and had to work in industry to support a child with special needs after my PhD.

I think this was my mistake. I didn't address that, I thought it was implicit by looking at my CV where I pointed out my career breaks. Supposing that things are obvious is another mistake in this fellowship. I addressed it more explicitly in my last application, but have still to see the outcome.

[CGN]

Reading through all the replies, I am wondering about productivity measurement. Is it just the number of publications or will the number and amount of previous grants, including grants for conference travel, conference presentations, awards/prizes, etc. be taken into account? Additionally, as such an information is mainly presented in detail only in Part-B2, do we know if reviewers read through the CV?

It depends on your specific (sub)fields. In medicine, a lot of doctors have thousands of citations and hundreds of articles starting after their MD (because they enroll in specialization schools first, and, if they enroll in a PhD, they usually already have published articles, at least in my country). In the humanities, citations are not counted and books are more important than articles. That's why proposal descriptors are very important when you submit: if you choose the right keywords, people from your same discipline will evaluate your proposal in accordance with (international) discipline-specific standards.

So to answer your questions, they check if your metrics (regarding all the aspects you mentioned) match those of your peers and if you are likely to be able to carry out the proposed research. It depends on what you wrote in your methodology and implementation part. As someone mentioned before, it is very important that your proposal sections match the guidelines.

[CGN]

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.

How did you address this circumstance in your proposal?
In mine (funded with a score of 96, top 10% in my area of study), I clearly stated that the fellowship would be my unique chance to restart in academia (since the restart panel has been suppressed), due to the fact that I stayed 2 years on maternity leave and had to work in industry to support a child with special needs after my PhD.

I think this was my mistake. I didn't address that, I thought it was implicit by looking at my CV where I pointed out my career breaks. Supposing that things are obvious is another mistake in this fellowship. I addressed it more explicitly in my last application, but have still to see the outcome.

Good luck! I really hope you get it. I completely understand the difficulty of remaining competitive while working with children. I clearly stated it in my ERC application, and I am waiting for the results, too. I hope reviewers will consider this circumstance.

[mshu]

Do you know when the phase is starting to change to ranking based on experience in previous years? thanks a lot

[skm]

Do you know when the phase is starting to change to ranking based on experience in previous years? thanks a lot

No idea. I think last year it started around a week before the results start flowing on 13th February. but not sure, if anyone in this groups got into 'Ranking' last year even prior to 1 week, may please tell.