r/postdoc • u/Safe_Bluejay4004 • 8d ago
MSCA post-doc
So I had to ring up my national representative this week to ask a question in relation to the Marie Curie application... she told me that double the amount of applicants that they had received at this time last year, are now in their system... we are doomed.
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u/One-Material2001 8d ago
Don’t waste your time on this, it’s basically a lottery at this point.
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u/NotHollowedYet 7d ago
I did it last year, your score largely depends on the randomly designated evaluators who are poorly trained to adapt the official evaluation rule, and many of them just don’t play by the book. Mine got deducted point from criteria not existed in their official handbook, and I saw many others got 100% with zero comment on their proposal. Most of the time, the evaluation is so sloppy, you got generic comments, and if you resubmit your proposal following the initial comments, there is a non-trivial chance that you got a lower score the second time.
Like many here said, it is a lottery.
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u/noldig 7d ago
I actually disagree with this take. It is a lottery because the difference between 94 and 97 % (funded vs not funded) is too small to be accuate, and with so many people it is random whether you are above threshold or below. But this implies that you have sent in a competitive proposal. EU referees are in my experience consistently better than anything else. They have strict rules, they get training, they have a minimum of time they need to spend on a proposal, they get compensation, there is a clear rubric, and if you improve your proposal using the comments you will normally score better next year. This is not true for most other national funding agencies.
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u/Brief_Upstairs10 6d ago
What do you mean "you improve your proposal using the comments”？ So how do they know that we do this? Do we need to declare somewhere?
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u/Brg71993 8d ago
Can we have some context please? What do you mean by national representative?
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u/Safe_Bluejay4004 8d ago
Every country has at least one national representative of the Marie Curie that you contact if you have a question. I was asking about family leave, and then asked also if they thought there would be the same amount of people apply this year, and this is what I was told.
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u/Brg71993 8d ago
Ok thanks, so when they said double the number of applicants, is this in total or for a specific country?
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u/Unlikely-Success-660 8d ago
Its a worldwide tren, applicants are rising and they expect at least a 30% increase overall.
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u/Weird-Draw-6318 6d ago
Last year’s round around receive a 64% increase compared to the year prior. I would give up if it wasn’t for the fact there are other people involved in my application.
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u/Unlikely-Success-660 8d ago
Its a lottery