The excitement I experienced in the past months while I was waiting for the outcomes of my grant applications was obviously new to me but felt a bit familiar as well. It reminded me of the period between the moment you submit a manuscript for publication in a scientific journal and the moment, typically many weeks/months later, that you receive an e-mail with the message that your manuscript is accepted for publication, or not. Hmm, maybe I should rephrase this last part: …with the message that your manuscript is rejected, or not. Anyway, the major difference between these forms of excitement is likely the fact that there are fundamentally different things at stake. Regarding your manuscript, you eventually should be able to get it published somewhere, albeit often in a modified form and quite some months or even years later. When it comes to grant applications, however, there are only limited opportunities to secure research funding, which are notably all marked by low success rates. There is furthermore not that much time to get the funds that should support you (at least for some years) in your academic career, since you have got to eat and pay the rent as well. So, in other words, you may very well expect something positive to come out of the manuscripts you are writing, while you should probably prepare yourself for negative outcomes of your grant applications.
To be honest, I did not really know how to prepare for the past week in which I received news regarding the two major grant proposals I handed in recently. I wanted to be optimistic as positive outcomes would allow me to continue pursuing my dream of establishing a career in science. Obviously, I needed to be realistic as well given the low success rates associated with obtaining these grants and thus maybe prepare myself for a negative outcome. Such negative outcome, in turn, would probably mean that I would pursue other interesting career opportunities which I frequently dream(ed) about as well.
Pfiewww, this is all too much speculation and relativization, at least in the eyes of a 20-year old Frank who was a privileged boy from a happy and healthy family in Western Europe and who pretty much always got what he wanted. This Frank would probably rely on the luck he typically had, and he would have been completely devastated if he would not get the grants. Fortunately, people change with time, and the 29-year old Frank is a more down to earth person who had his fair share of disappointments thereby being better able to cope with them in a healthy way. I can now appreciate the words from Alexander Graham Bell who said that “when one door closes, another opens”, and I think I even felt reassured with the idea that Lady Fortune would get to decide which door(s) would open and which one(s) would close.
Well, too much speculation and relativization indeed. I was quite unhappy when I read that “I regret to inform you that your application was not awarded a [Rubicon] grant” and that “I regret to inform you that it [application for an EMBO Long-Term Fellowship] has been unsuccessful”. Fortunately, I was far from down and out, and I did not loose a second of sleep because of these disappointments. Those who know me, can tell you that this is quite unusual, as I loose seconds of sleep due to basically everything. For the EMBO application, I unfortunately did not receive any feedback, as they were unable to do so due to a high number of applications (typically more than 800). The Rubicon evaluation committee fortunately did provide feedback on my application which was rather encouraging. The application was found to be “very good” and ranked 5th in my category, in which the four highest ranked projects would receive funding. Constructive feedback was furthermore provided which is definitely helpful for improving the proposal and thereby increasing our chances to get funding for the project in the near future.
That is all for now folks. You can probably imagine that I am not willing to give up on my academic dreams yet, and that you will hear from me (hopefully) soon……
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