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My story to #ERCCoG 2020, a thread. A self-help guide to the younger me, and lessons I keep coming back to:
My ERC Starting Grant was rejected in 2012. It scored in the bottom 70-100%, and so prevented from submitting to ERC in 2013. The same proposal got me to RS URF interviews (I was one below the cut-off), and ultimately (at 2nd attempt!) my successful EPSRC 5-year fellowship.
I don't think it is hyperbole to say that implementing the content of that rejected proposal is the work that has made me famous.
Lesson 1: if you are putting forward something radical, e.g. trying to create a research area, and/or you don't have a tribe, you *really* need to evidence proof of concept. And be able to articulate things well.
Years later I understand that reviewers really do like radical thinking, but you need to give them something to fight your corner with. Evidence through science, and articulate it well.
Lesson 2: work out what your benchmarks are, and communicate them. Be clear what problems your technology will cover.
People don't want you to solve questions in their area just because of their ego, they want to be sure that there are clear benchmarking problems being solved along the way.
Lesson 3: learn to interpret comments. Of the brief feedback from my rejected ERC Starting Grant, the comment "I appreciate the originality of the proposal, but I wonder if it is really going to give important new results" really stayed with me.
It means I was articulating neither the specifics, nor the breadth, of what I was trying to do. I thought I was, but I wasn't.
Lesson 4: invest time in learning how to write proposals. Draft and redraft and redraft and redraft. It is horribly painful, but like writing anything well, it takes practice. Don't assume you will be good at it, the likelihood is that you are terrible.
Communication of ideas is ultimately just communication. If you invest time and work on it, your grant writing will improve, but so will many other things too. I've found that to be a very satisfying corollary.
Lesson 5: if tribal behaviour is getting you down, read Murakami's short story "The rise and fall of sharpies cakes". That short story has cheered me up no end at many points over the past 10 years!
Most problems are not unique, they are not even unique to science. They are universal.
Lesson 6: if at any point you are successful in the future, share not just that success, but also the failures along the way. Hero PIs don't exist, they are just people.
Even at my career stage, rejection does not only take place in the past tense. I've received two rejections this week already, and it is only Wednesday! Success is only a tiny fraction of the wider story, and it is rarely the defining part of it.
Hardest Lesson: learn to deal with rejection, and take your own advice. For context, I've spent the last 24 hours feeling simply gutted (see under Lesson 6), regardless of the great #ERCCoG news. Silly? Kind-of. Rejection hurts the more you believe in what you are trying to do.
Writing the above reminded me how far I have come since 2012, and how far I still have to go. Don't lose sight of the fact that not being a Sharpies Cake is precisely what makes life fun! I now embrace it, celebrate it, and I wouldn't swap it for the world.
Final key question: as a reviewer, would I reject my 2012 ERC Starting Grant now? Well, I would appreciate its originality, but I would have concerns over lack of benchmarking, lack of predictions, and the poorly articulated proof of concept!
Whoever that reviewer was back in 2012, I 
you! Factual criticism is how we improve.
you! Factual criticism is how we improve.
