2020 Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (H2020-MSCA-IF-2020)

[rf91]

Guys, can you imagin receiving email with "MSCA-IF-2020 call results" in tje subject from your NCP.

They wanted to remind if we could share with them our results next week....

[Giadina_1988]

I had tears in my eyes reading your message... I am applauding you. I feel exactly the same.

This sounds perfect on paper but I personally, over the years, have seen dozens of examples of random, inconsistent and self-contraductory reviewer comments. They will literally say that the project is innovative in the first comment and that the projects lacks innovative aspects in the last one, with all kinds of incosistencies in between. Also, dozens of examples of people scoring significantly lower on a resubmission, having allegedly improved the proposal. Sadly, the reviews I have seen strongly suggests that, at least in those particular cases, little of what you describe below is actually followed in practice.

I Ml

I agree with Little_Venice. I add that with 11000 application (or 9000 doesn't make really a difference) there is the need to sort out heavily applications. Therefore, if an evaluator wants to find shortcomings/limitations to your application she/he will find it and then your application might be compromised in any case already. Its not the first time I hear that from other colleagues evaluating.

It's not random, so perhaps the word "lottery" is unfair. But it is about the evaluator looking at your proposal and seeing value in it. The nature of debate in academic fields means that there are different views on this. And last year, the comments that I got that lowered by "excellence" score by over one point (even with improvements in clarity from the year before, when this section scored highly) were clearly about a political position in relation to the work I was carrying out. They were about a critique of the project that I could understand that someone would have from that perspective -- and have tried to preempt this year -- but they weren't actually about not seeing merit in the proposal. And then there were other comments that were clearly in there to find justifications to lower the score.

So randomly hating is not the correct term, but evaluators have positions, or they are given a proposal where they don't fully know the field so they are unable to evaluate them according to the latest work in that field. And when you are on the receiving end of this and your improved proposal reduces in score from one year to the other it feels very unfair and arbitrary.

For what it's worth, the first year that I didn't get it, I was waitlisted and had minor technical critiques about my project and the criteria which actually made me feel that it was very fair. But the reviewers were clear that I had a great idea. And then the next year the reviewers disagreed on this core point of whether the research topic I was addressing was a good one. It is a lottery as to whether I get reviewers who share this first position this year or the second one.

[Vol]

People are putting too much emphasis on a single evaluator randomly hating you.

Not quite: if one of three reviewers does not like you, your project, or your supervisor for any reason (personal, political, too much different area of expertise, etc.) and gives you 70 out of 100, you have zero chance even if two others give you 100 and 100.

For resubmission receiving lower score however, it may be a random process of who reviews it, or may simply mean the project becomes less up to date after one year.

[sociologist]

Lottery is reductive of what actually happens during these evaluations and deliberations: there is the matter of evaluator-experts giving strategic scores (full marks) to get 'their' favorite project funded, there is the formation of alliances among evaluators during deliberation ("S/He looks like s/he knows what s/he's saying, If s/he says it is good, I better back him/her."), the consequent but largely implicit horse-trading among evaluators ("I back yours, if you back mine"), etc.

Even if situated in the USA, this and this sheds quite some light on what goes on behind the scenes.

[AndyC]

Do we get the emails on Monday or Tuesday?

For sure they cannot start sending emails overnight Tuesday/Wednesday because Wednesday 00:01 is after deadline.
I would say night Monday/Tuesday is the night of horror

[AndyC]

A bit of luck you need. However, last information NCP does not receive results so it will be a long alcoholic weekend Monday.

Do not forget about NoPanic42 birthday party on Sunday

[PetetheCat]

A bit of luck you need. However, last information NCP does not receive results so it will be a long alcoholic weekend Monday.

Do not forget about NoPanic42 birthday party on Sunday

Yes! What time are we partying? We need a timezone specified!

[AndyC]

A bit of luck you need. However, last information NCP does not receive results so it will be a long alcoholic weekend Monday.

Do not forget about NoPanic42 birthday party on Sunday

Yes! What time are we partying? We need a timezone specified!

NoPanic42 ? Any requests ?

[Elke]

What time do we no-panic?

[Yao]

Hi everyone, do you guys think, this MSCA fellowship would help one to secure an academic job in Europe?

of course. this fellowship is with high reputation globally