An important responsibility of academic scientists is to secure the funds needed for carrying out research projects. No money, no science, no job. Quite significant portions of a researcher’s time are actually spent on writing research proposals which are subsequently sent to funding organizations that evaluate them. These organizations also make decisions (or coordinate decision making) on who gets and who does not get the money, and typical success rates lie between ten and twenty percent. Besides the large amount of time that needs to be spent on preparing a proposal, the amount of time that passes between sending out a proposal and receiving the final results can be quite substantial. Just to give you an idea of this, I presented a timeline below which applies to one of my recent proposals.
October 31, 2020
When moving to Switzerland in June 2019, I already knew that I wanted to go back to the Netherlands one day to resume my academic career there. In an ideal situation, I would manage to get hold of a prestigious ‘Veni’ grant from the Dutch Research Council NWO, and I realized in the autumn of 2020 that the first deadline for the next Veni round was approaching rapidly. And even though at that time I still had one and a half years of contract time left in Switzerland, I could not miss a chance of applying for this grant because time was already getting tight.
So, on a misty day in October 2020, I went dashing through the autumn leaves along the banks of the Rhône river to get the creative juices flowing. I decided to walk from my studio in the heart of Geneva towards the Swiss-French border, and I had planned to take a train back home once I had come up with a good idea. From the trail I went hiking on, train stations were accessible roughly every four to five kilometers, and making it to the final station would correspond to an eighteen-kilometer hike.
That day, I made it to the border, and I even decided to walk back five more kilometers. Not as a punishment but as a bonus because I had come up with some interesting ideas that kept me on the trails. So on that specific day, I drafted the blueprints for my Veni project proposal, and I used the following months to develop my ideas further and discuss them with my aspired collaborators.
January 5, 2021
The first step in the Veni application process consisted of handing in a pre-application form which needed to done before January 7, 2021. This form mainly allowed for sharing personal details and summarizing one’s academic achievements based on which a first selection of 71 candidates (out of 169) was made by the funding organization itself. The selected candidates would then be invited to hand in a full proposal which would also feature descriptions of the proposed research project and the expected impact.
February 12, 2021
In February 2021, the month in which the outcomes of the pre-application phase were expected, something dramatic happened. A cyber-attack was launched on the computer systems of the funding organization which had major consequences. For my Veni round, the planning got postponed for four months, which was obviously not ideal. Still, this could work out well for me as the final decisions were rescheduled to Mid-April (2022) which was a couple of weeks before my contract in Geneva would end.
May 12, 2021
The first judgment day was on the Wednesday before Ascension day 2021, and shortly after lunch that day I received an email that I was invited to hand in a full proposal. Naturally, I immediately went to the supermarket to buy some cookies and cake to celebrate this with my colleagues. Furthermore, this good news was the start of a productive summer during which I could put my research plans onto paper, as was needed for the full proposal.
August 31, 2021
I will probably never forget the last week of August 2021, because I completed a Veni grant proposal and a full-distance triathlon. While my body was still recovering from the latter, I clicked the “submit” button in the online Veni application portal, and once again, a waiting game had started.
November 17, 2021
The next step in the application process did not involve any decision making, hence the period after submitting the full proposal was probably the least stressful one. In this period, several national and international experts would evaluate the proposals and provide the funding organization with their feedback. This feedback would then be sent to the applicants to give them the opportunity to clarify potential ambiguities or possibly counter criticism. In my case, I received this feedback on November 17, 2021, and I was granted two weeks to respond to it.
November 30, 2021
Writing a letter responding to the external feedback is an interesting process, and there are numerous do’s and don’ts which can be learned from other, more experienced researchers. I thus contacted many researchers I looked up to, who were all willing to help me with writing a solid response. Particularly, I got loads of input from department heads within my current research institute, and it was interesting to learn that there are multiple roads leading to Rome. Still, the don’ts were pretty the same for everyone, and I was thus confident that this would also apply to the evaluation committee members who would take the next decision in the application process (after handing in the final version of my response letter on November 30, 2021).
January 21, 2022
The committee’s judgment at this point would take into consideration the feedback provided by the reviewers as well as the response letters of the candidates. By the end of January 2022, I received the news that I was one of the 40 candidates who were invited to give a presentation to the committee members four weeks later. Unfortunately, I was working from home that particular Friday, but I obviously brought cookies to work on the next Monday morning.
February 16, 2022
I have given numerous presentations in my life, but none of them was as exciting, difficult, enjoyable, and terrifying as the presentation I gave to the Veni assessment committee on February 16, 2022. In the weeks before, I took a holiday to prepare for this presentation, and I spent hours and hours practicing in front of our plants, mirrors, and the birds in our garden. Most importantly, I did several test presentations in front of experienced researchers within my current institute, which had a crucial impact on the eventual presentation. I clearly remember that I traveled to this institute for my first test presentation thinking that is was of good enough quality already. Well, I almost came home crying that day after finding out that my perception of good was far from good enough. A couple of days later, I stopped by for a second test presentation after incorporating all suggested improvements. And of course, that version was vastly different from the eventual presentation I gave to in front of the committee. All in all, I think that this presentation marks one of my coolest experiences I had in my professional life, and I was genuinely happy with myself after leaving the presentation room on February 16. At that moment, I also realized that a fourth waiting game had just begun, which felt different than the others because at this stage there was nothing I could do anymore that could affect the outcomes of the application process.
April 5, 2022
Just before lunch on April 5, 2022, I took my phone out of my bag and saw that I had missed a phone call thirty minutes earlier. I did not know the phone number, but it seemed to originate from the geographical area where the funding organization has its headquarters. Oof, I needed to sit and calm down, because that day could very well become the day that I would find out whether or not I was among the top 16 candidates whose projects would receive funding. So, I breathed in and out a couple of times and called back the person who had tried to reach me earlier. At least, I tried it because no one answered the phone. Fortunately for me, however, this person called me back a couple of minutes later and immediately broke the news about my seventh position in the final ranking. Wow, I did not know what to say, but somehow I could not stop talking. For sure, I would have ended up in a funniest home videos compilation if someone had made a video of me that moment. But thankfully, I was alone in my office that day, and my only witnesses were inanimate objects which I do not have to fear.
April 11, 2022
Having a mild version of an imposter syndrome (potential topic of a later blog post), I wanted to await the written confirmation of my successful grant application before celebrating it. I do not know whether they ever brought good news to the wrong candidate, but I would rather not be that person bringing celebratory cake to work which later on gets an aftertaste of consolation. So, another waiting game had begun which would become the shortest one of all. Because on April 11, I received a notification on my telephone that I was tagged on a LinkedIn message from the University of Groningen presenting their latest Veni grant awardees. In the following hours, my telephone almost exploded due to many incoming calls and messages from people who congratulated me. Thank you all for that.
April 12, 2022
While thinking about which cake I should bring to work, I could not stop thinking about my fellow Veni applicants who did not get the grant. Some may have secured alternative funding to continue their academic careers while for others it may be possible that this negative outcome marks the end of their academic dreams. As far as I know, all forty candidates who pitched their ideas in front of the Veni assessment committee last February are talented scientists with great and fundable ideas. With so many great candidates, however, one needs to have a little luck, and I feel compassionate towards anyone whose scientific dreams might come to come to an end due to the outcomes of this grant application process.
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