MSCA RESERVE LIST 2021

trina_80
Posts: 285
Joined: Fri Jan 08, 2021 9:41 am

Re: MSCA RESERVE LIST 2021

Post by trina_80 » Thu Jun 23, 2022 2:19 pm

Wolvy_18 wrote:
Thu Jun 23, 2022 2:15 pm
Additionally, wouldnt it be reasonable to assume that those in the reserve list who also have a UK host be automatically disqualified? (Assuming that UKRI is not going to fund those projects).
trina_80 wrote:
Thu Jun 23, 2022 1:40 pm
gigi-7 wrote:
Thu Jun 23, 2022 1:34 pm


Yes, that’s what I thought. Now that the offical rejection letters have been sent, they might contact people in the reserve list. This year, there were ~200 projects with a UK host funded, so I would expect ~200 people from the reserve list across all the panels to be contacted.
That's right. There were 227. ;)
Yes, that may very well be the case.

Qube
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Jun 23, 2022 5:58 pm

Re: MSCA RESERVE LIST 2021

Post by Qube » Thu Jun 23, 2022 6:15 pm

Hi All,
I've been following this discussion from the sidelines since I'm on the reserve list for the GF-ENV. I had a monster score (95%) that would have gotten me the grant in any other category, or in my panel in any other year, so quite unlucky there. It was my first and final submission, because i become ineligible next year.

My NCP shared the following:

As of last week ALL UK based grants have become ineligible (they have the UKRI guarantee). These grants and associated budgets are returned to the either the IF or the GF total budgets. The funds are redistributed across the panels such that overall success rates are roughly similar. This means that its not directly given back to the panel. For example: I know I was nr. 4 on the ranking of the reserve list, and although I know there are 3 UK proposals in front of me with higher rankings, that does not mean i will be nr. 1 on the reserve list as of now.

People on the reserve list will be contacted soon (whatever soon means in European bureaucracy).

So yes: sit tight, nothing really changes, but at least you know how it works.

p.s. I was under the impression that the Global panels had higher success rates than the European ones but as of 2021, the budget has been reduced by 37%, which is way more than the reduction in budget due to Brexit. Now the success rates are more similar to the IF panels. This still doesn't explain though, why the cutoff scores are insanely high in the GF panels.

melk
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2022 11:49 am

Re: MSCA RESERVE LIST 2021

Post by melk » Thu Jun 23, 2022 6:59 pm

Many thanks for sharing this Qube and good luck for your application! You had the amazing score, you should get funded!

I am not sure if I understand correctly the system to re-distribute the funding... If they will try to reach the same success rate in each individual panel, it means that people who are lower on the reserve list in the panel with low success rate (e.g. LIF or PHY with the success rate about 12%) will be contacted before people who are ranked first in ECO or CHE panel (15-16%)?
If having the similar success rate in each panel is so important for EC, why they didn't take it into consideration when generating the main list in March...?
Qube wrote:
Thu Jun 23, 2022 6:15 pm
Hi All,
I've been following this discussion from the sidelines since I'm on the reserve list for the GF-ENV. I had a monster score (95%) that would have gotten me the grant in any other category, or in my panel in any other year, so quite unlucky there. It was my first and final submission, because i become ineligible next year.

My NCP shared the following:

As of last week ALL UK based grants have become ineligible (they have the UKRI guarantee). These grants and associated budgets are returned to the either the IF or the GF total budgets. The funds are redistributed across the panels such that overall success rates are roughly similar. This means that its not directly given back to the panel. For example: I know I was nr. 4 on the ranking of the reserve list, and although I know there are 3 UK proposals in front of me with higher rankings, that does not mean i will be nr. 1 on the reserve list as of now.

People on the reserve list will be contacted soon (whatever soon means in European bureaucracy).

So yes: sit tight, nothing really changes, but at least you know how it works.

p.s. I was under the impression that the Global panels had higher success rates than the European ones but as of 2021, the budget has been reduced by 37%, which is way more than the reduction in budget due to Brexit. Now the success rates are more similar to the IF panels. This still doesn't explain though, why the cutoff scores are insanely high in the GF panels.

Qube
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Jun 23, 2022 5:58 pm

Re: MSCA RESERVE LIST 2021

Post by Qube » Thu Jun 23, 2022 7:05 pm

Yes this was also one of my concerns too, but the reply is simply that those panels that differ a little have low numbers in applications, and the statistics might be off. There might also be a large difference in the budgets associated to individual grants, which might lead to skewed statistics in small panels.

trina_80
Posts: 285
Joined: Fri Jan 08, 2021 9:41 am

Re: MSCA RESERVE LIST 2021

Post by trina_80 » Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:52 pm

Qube wrote:
Thu Jun 23, 2022 7:05 pm
Yes this was also one of my concerns too, but the reply is simply that those panels that differ a little have low numbers in applications, and the statistics might be off. There might also be a large difference in the budgets associated to individual grants, which might lead to skewed statistics in small panels.
Thank you so much for sharing all the info, Qube, and congrats for the very high score!
However, I honestly do not understand the logic behind this system of "re-distribution", and even less so the reply to Melk's concern. :?

Qube
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Jun 23, 2022 5:58 pm

Re: MSCA RESERVE LIST 2021

Post by Qube » Thu Jun 23, 2022 9:26 pm

I'm sorry that it is confusing, I will try to explain again but differently:

If you look at the cutoff score table, you see that the success rate (also a percentage) is pretty much 15.something % across all panels (in either IF or GF). The budget is distributed to the scientific panels according to the number of applications to that panel, and this happens for each of the two funding programs (IF and GF). Thus the success rate is approximately equal for all European fellowship panels. And because of the significant reduction in the GF budget (higher than the reduction of IF), the success rates (the percentages that are given in the table) are roughly the same for GF and IF.

Now Brexit happens. All UK proposals drop out. which should affect all panels a little different, but roughly 20 percent of the budgets are available for redistribution. When UK proposals are out, the success rates change: the number of grants has changed, but also the denominator, the total amount of applications. The Program Committee has gathered last week to decide how to redistribute the available funds in the panels of each program. Note that the total available funds of the two programs will remain the same, there is no money flowing from the IF to GF or vice versa. This happened to enforce roughly the same success rates across all panels within each program. And as much as it hurts me personally*, I do think it is a fair approach. Overall the success rate will increase, because 20 percent of the total applications has dropped out, and the number of awarded grants will stay roughly the same.

I use roughly a lot, since the variations in the numbers across the panels are influenced by: 1) the budget of each proposal 2) proposals can't be partly funded 3) some panels have very few applications, that make statistics harder to enforce (see GF-ECO).

The question that remains is: why are the cut off scores so different for each panel?
There has been a lot of discussion already on how the proposals are evaluated and some have gotten very upsetting results by having their resubmitted proposals being reevaluated with a diminishing score (The opposite happens quite a lot too). So we do know that there is a lot of subjectivity and maybe also rivalry in the evaluations, and as much as I hate it, it is a random factor that you should take into account with letting these evaluations get to you personally. I do get that this is hard, for me too, since these grants can make or break your career and it is hard not to take that personally.

*For some who understand stuff in math: quick calculation of my position in my panel: before june 14: success rate was 19 proposals/119 applicants *100 = 16% my ranking was nr 23. After june 14, my ranking is 20, but the total number of applications is 119*.8 = 95. So I need an increase of the success rate from 16% to 21% to get the funding. The success-rates are expected to rise from 15.5 to 15.5*1.25 = 19.4%, from which you can deduct that only 18 or 19 of this panel will get funding. So no additional grants will be awarded in this panel and maybe even one less, which means that one person will miss out in this panel in favor of a person in another panel. For me 1 or 2 people have to actually drop out. That is a lot and not likely to happen in such a small panel. Note that red indicates an estimate.
melk wrote:
Thu Jun 23, 2022 6:59 pm
Many thanks for sharing this Qube and good luck for your application! You had the amazing score, you should get funded!

I am not sure if I understand correctly the system to re-distribute the funding... If they will try to reach the same success rate in each individual panel, it means that people who are lower on the reserve list in the panel with low success rate (e.g. LIF or PHY with the success rate about 12%) will be contacted before people who are ranked first in ECO or CHE panel (15-16%)?
If having the similar success rate in each panel is so important for EC, why they didn't take it into consideration when generating the main list in March...?


trina_80
Posts: 285
Joined: Fri Jan 08, 2021 9:41 am

Re: MSCA RESERVE LIST 2021

Post by trina_80 » Fri Jun 24, 2022 8:40 am

Qube wrote:
Thu Jun 23, 2022 9:26 pm
I'm sorry that it is confusing, I will try to explain again but differently:

If you look at the cutoff score table, you see that the success rate (also a percentage) is pretty much 15.something % across all panels (in either IF or GF). The budget is distributed to the scientific panels according to the number of applications to that panel, and this happens for each of the two funding programs (IF and GF). Thus the success rate is approximately equal for all European fellowship panels. And because of the significant reduction in the GF budget (higher than the reduction of IF), the success rates (the percentages that are given in the table) are roughly the same for GF and IF.

Now Brexit happens. All UK proposals drop out. which should affect all panels a little different, but roughly 20 percent of the budgets are available for redistribution. When UK proposals are out, the success rates change: the number of grants has changed, but also the denominator, the total amount of applications. The Program Committee has gathered last week to decide how to redistribute the available funds in the panels of each program. Note that the total available funds of the two programs will remain the same, there is no money flowing from the IF to GF or vice versa. This happened to enforce roughly the same success rates across all panels within each program. And as much as it hurts me personally*, I do think it is a fair approach. Overall the success rate will increase, because 20 percent of the total applications has dropped out, and the number of awarded grants will stay roughly the same.

I use roughly a lot, since the variations in the numbers across the panels are influenced by: 1) the budget of each proposal 2) proposals can't be partly funded 3) some panels have very few applications, that make statistics harder to enforce (see GF-ECO).

The question that remains is: why are the cut off scores so different for each panel?
There has been a lot of discussion already on how the proposals are evaluated and some have gotten very upsetting results by having their resubmitted proposals being reevaluated with a diminishing score (The opposite happens quite a lot too). So we do know that there is a lot of subjectivity and maybe also rivalry in the evaluations, and as much as I hate it, it is a random factor that you should take into account with letting these evaluations get to you personally. I do get that this is hard, for me too, since these grants can make or break your career and it is hard not to take that personally.

*For some who understand stuff in math: quick calculation of my position in my panel: before june 14: success rate was 19 proposals/119 applicants *100 = 16% my ranking was nr 23. After june 14, my ranking is 20, but the total number of applications is 119*.8 = 95. So I need an increase of the success rate from 16% to 21% to get the funding. The success-rates are expected to rise from 15.5 to 15.5*1.25 = 19.4%, from which you can deduct that only 18 or 19 of this panel will get funding. So no additional grants will be awarded in this panel and maybe even one less, which means that one person will miss out in this panel in favor of a person in another panel. For me 1 or 2 people have to actually drop out. That is a lot and not likely to happen in such a small panel. Note that red indicates an estimate.
melk wrote:
Thu Jun 23, 2022 6:59 pm
Many thanks for sharing this Qube and good luck for your application! You had the amazing score, you should get funded!

I am not sure if I understand correctly the system to re-distribute the funding... If they will try to reach the same success rate in each individual panel, it means that people who are lower on the reserve list in the panel with low success rate (e.g. LIF or PHY with the success rate about 12%) will be contacted before people who are ranked first in ECO or CHE panel (15-16%)?
If having the similar success rate in each panel is so important for EC, why they didn't take it into consideration when generating the main list in March...?

Thank you for taking the time to write this lengthy explanation, Qube! I do understand what you're saying now. I guess we'll just have to see how all this plays out, as there are still so many unknowns.

oldchap
Posts: 11
Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2022 12:05 pm

Re: MSCA RESERVE LIST 2021

Post by oldchap » Fri Jun 24, 2022 11:28 am

I believe the number of places available will be more since the weightage for UK is higher than most other EU countries.

1 UK winner would cost roughly EU235k per person as compared to EU181k for Spain winner. Considering all allowance included.

So hopefully we can get more places for the reserves. I knew nothing about the EU procedure. Just having a +ve thought here.

gigi-7
Posts: 41
Joined: Mon Mar 21, 2022 10:47 am

Re: MSCA RESERVE LIST 2021

Post by gigi-7 » Fri Jun 24, 2022 12:01 pm

Wow, thank you all for sharing so many info.
Qube I didn't quite get if you know for certain (from official sources) that this is the way how EU will redistribute the funds or if that's your thoughts on that.

On another note, from what I am reading on the FB grups, lots of people have not signed their GAs yet, and assuming we still have to wait for all the GAs to be signed before being contacted, we will have to wait a bit more...

trina_80
Posts: 285
Joined: Fri Jan 08, 2021 9:41 am

Re: MSCA RESERVE LIST 2021

Post by trina_80 » Fri Jun 24, 2022 12:41 pm

oldchap wrote:
Fri Jun 24, 2022 11:28 am
I believe the number of places available will be more since the weightage for UK is higher than most other EU countries.

1 UK winner would cost roughly EU235k per person as compared to EU181k for Spain winner. Considering all allowance included.

So hopefully we can get more places for the reserves. I knew nothing about the EU procedure. Just having a +ve thought here.
Huh, I didn't think of the fact that there was a difference in the allocated budget / grant from one country to another. Although I did remember reading something about that a while back. You're right. This should also factor in, and it's good news for us because (as I was just reading in an article) UK has one of the highest Country Correction Coefficients (CCC) of all participating countries. Thanks for pointing that out!
Last edited by trina_80 on Fri Jun 24, 2022 1:25 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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