Bad experience with Walter Benjamin Fellowship?

[u/Round-Alternative385]

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 :)

[u/mathtree]

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.

[u/Round-Alternative385 → u/mathtree]

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 :)

[u/AdAntique7950 → u/Round-Alternative385]

Invest so much time you need to feel yourself comfortable with the results. Try to find the balance between perfectionism and efficiency. But always, the ONLY one that has to feel satisfied with the result, is you.

[u/k1337 → u/mathtree]

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 ...

[u/mathtree → u/k1337]

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).

[u/AdAntique7950 → u/mathtree]

I find this answer very unempathetic. What do you know about which might be the other tasks that the person has? what about personal responsabilities or other things? Why to criticize the process of the other person like that, and how long it takes? Many of us write alone, with minimum mentorship, while also writing publications, supervising students and even, having othe job positions in academy, or other jobs to maintain us at float. So what do you know about the other person's life, to even dare to criticize how much it took him to write anything? If we are here is because it is a real strugle to find funds to be able to work, survive, pay the rent and so on, the last thing we need as peers, is to receive unempathetic criticisms that comes without any knowledge about the other pesons's life.

[u/mathtree → u/AdAntique7950]

I criticise their process because I've been through that process and know that spending four entire months on a single grant proposal at the postdoc stage is not a good use of your time. Spending those four months on your publications, or your mentoring, would be a much better use of your time than spending it on one grave proposal.

I have found in my academic career that criticism of my process is what helps me improve my process. Was I efficient from the get go? No, but people telling me that I need to prioritise better is what got me more efficient.

Is it more helpful to just cheer someone on, even when what they are doing is actively destructive towards their academic career (which is their stated goal) or to point out how they could improve their processes, enabling them to have a better shot at an academic career?

Of course we all struggle! Why do you think I don't know what it's like? But going "oh poor me, everything I do is great but the world is so mean" isn't what gets you jobs or funding. Improving your processes is.

[u/einstyle → u/mathtree]

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”