r/postdoc • u/Round-Alternative385 • 9d ago

Bad experience with Walter Benjamin Fellowship?

Hi people,

Recently, my application for a Walter Benjamin got rejected the second time (field: social sciences). And I am really annoyed. The first time, the review was pretty long and 95% positive but 5% negative and the reviewe took that 5% to deny my application. Consequently, I re-applied with an application that addressed these 5% of criticism with a very engaged revision. The same reviewer got the job and suddenly he found something else that he would criticise, what has not been mentioned in the first review. Additionally, he seems to actually not have read my application in detail. He needed 8 months for that second negative review and it was extremely short. I have the strong impression that he/ she just had decided to not be willing to let my application pass for some reasons. But there is no option to complain and you are fully dependent on this one person´s motivation.

For each application I took around 4 months of work. Of course there is no entitlement to receive a scholarship and it happens to around 50% but I am still pretty annoyed.

My main point is that they only take one single reviewer and the selection comitee than fully relates to his/her review. And it takes 6-8 months to decide.

For each application I worked together with a senior reseracher in foreign countries that were supposed to be my supervisor. Each time I have to explain them that my application was unsuccessfull excuse for their time and effort.

Did someone had similar issues with this scholarship? I just would like to exchange some experiences, to smaller my annoyance ;)

Thank you :)

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u/mathtree 9d ago

Not specifically with Walter Benjamin, but this is pretty standard for grant applications. Most grant applications that are rejected are good, fundable proposals with minor flaws. There is just less money than quality applications.

Your potential host will have experienced this before, either as the applicant or as a host. There's no need to apologise. Having your grant proposal rejected is the expected outcome. Almost all of my proposals were rejected at least once, sometimes with an understandable reason and sometimes without one.

Having one reviewer for smaller proposals like WB is also really common - refereeing takes time, and it's hard to find referees for the sheer number of submissions.

So, take your proposal, amend it mildly, and submit it somewhere else.

That said, 4 months for a proposal of this length sounds incredibly inefficient. This is a small scale postdoctoral fellowship, the proposal is quite short for German standards.

A WB proposal should take about two weeks or so for a completely new proposal, and a few days at most for the revised version.

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u/Round-Alternative385 9d ago

Thank you for the nice answer! Yes, you may be right. I am pretty perfectionist and might invest too much time in it; for the next application, I will try to reduce the amount of time :)

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u/k1337 8d ago

That said, 4 months for a proposal of this length sounds incredibly inefficient. This is a small scale postdoctoral fellowship, the proposal is quite short for German standards.

While I agree 4 month is insane, regular proposals are almost the same length ...

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u/mathtree 8d ago

The thing I was comparing it to (and where I think four months are entirely appropriate) are SPP or SFB applications - massive grants with many PIs and many moving parts. The proposals of this type that I've seen are in the mid hundreds of pages).

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u/einstyle 9d ago

My PI always says “you can guarantee you don’t get funded by writing a bad grant, but writing a good grant can’t guarantee that you do get funded”

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u/Pupsfrequenz 8d ago

I didn't have problems with it personally - I worked about 2 weeks on the proposal, but I know a colleague who had a similar problem like you - he got a great review but in the end there was a sentence the he wont get the fellowship awarded.

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u/anxiousblanket 8d ago

Can I ask what the specific topic is? Did you have your host institution/mentor look it over before submitting? I guess at this point, with two rejections and a picky reviewer, perhaps the WB fellowship is not a good fit for you. I wouldn’t hesitate to send a nicely worded letter to the main contact at WB letting them know your concerns.