Neuroscientist Sebo Uithol put four months of full-time work into a European grant application. In vain, it turned out this week. His plan B, a Vidi application, also fell through. ‘In June you are still the prime candidate, a few months later you are applying for unemployment benefits.’

‘Unfortunately, your proposal has received a B-score and therefore will not receive funding.’ This is how the email that ended the dream of philosopher and neuroscientist Sebo Uithol (42) begins. His application for a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC), part of the EU, was rejected.

Vox followed Uithol this past academic year during the entire process of his ERC application, in which he invested the equivalent of four months full-time work. He received support from university grant advisors while writing his application, was trained by Radboud In’to Languages ​​for the presentation he had to give for an assessment committee in Brussels, and received extensive feedback from colleagues.

A substantial investment for all parties. But an ERC Starting Grant is a prestigious grant of one and a half million euros, that is high on the list of top achievements of both scientists and their universities. Thegrant would have allowed the postdoc researcher at the Donders Institute to start his own research group. ‘The stepping stone to a permanent position,’ he called it earlier. After years of wandering the world – from labs in Europe to America – the grant would finally mean peace and stability for him and his young family. ‘But above all it would enable me to do what I prefer to do and what I think I can do well: doing science.’

The signs were favourable. Uithol’s application reached the last evaluation round, where ‘only’ about half of the applicants still fall. Yet he turned out to be one of the unlucky ones – just like another 2,700 of the in total more than 3,100 applicants. A huge let-down, getting stranded in sight of the finish line. How do you cope with such a disappointment, and how do you move on?

‘No, I did not scream out when I received the rejection email,’ says the researcher in the canteen of the Donders Center for Neuroimaging on the Kapittelweg. ‘I was very disappointed, but after twenty seconds my youngest daughter was standing next to me and asked if I wanted to inflate her beach ball for her.’

Frustration

The rejection is now a few weeks old – applicants are told the result sooner than the public – but the feeling of frustration still dominates the neuroscientist. ‘Five of the seven expert comments were full of praise, they thought my proposal was exceptional, or excellent-to-exceptional.’

Uithol’s research hypothesis – at the intersection of philosophy, language and neuroscience – was that the brain does not contain well-defined, fixed definitions of concepts such as ‘apple’ or ‘tree’. Instead, the brain deals flexibly with these kinds of concepts, he suspects, depending on the context in which you use them. If you want to build a shed your brain ‘sees’ the concept of the tree you want to saws down very differently from that same tree if you pass it while running, according to his theory.

Despite the five positive external comments – ‘reviews’ in jargon – the assessment committee was not sufficiently convinced of Uithol’s plan. ‘The committee considered the philosophical side of my proposal strong, said the rejection, but had doubts about whether the experiments were distinctive enough.’ To his frustration, this criticism had not been addressed at all during the presentation in Brussels, were he would have had a good response ready. ‘The committee didn’t properly understand the purpose of my experiments.’

Uithol has a feeling his presentation for the committee actually made little difference to the result. Occasionally it still haunts his mind: if he had formulated an answer that way or that way, then… ‘But that can  only move up your presentation a single position within the ranking. The external reviews prove to be especially decisive: I had refuted some of the criticisms during my presentation, but they simply came back in the rejection letter. ‘

It raises the question to what extent the presentation training he had is useful. The university support staff and professors – with whom Uithol practiced – put a lot of hours into preparation. ‘At  most it can make a difference for the people who are just on the verge of rejection or being awarded,’ Uithol thinks. ‘But you don’t know if that is you. The guidance and training I received was in any case really good. ‘

Vidi proposal

What now? Applying for a job as a mathematics teacher – as he announced before, half jokingly – is not what Uithol is going at the time being. For now, he will continue to focus on a career as a researcher. ‘I hope to find another postdoc job soon, and from there to submit a new grant application next year, for a Vidi grant from the Dutch NWO.’ The Vidi is the Dutch equivalent of a European Starting Grant: also an important stepping stone that allows you to launch your own research group.

But getting a Vidi is perhaps even more difficult than an ERC Starting Grant, because of even stricter rules. Applicants must be given a permanent position or tenure track by their university, as a result of which some institutions are very reluctant to support Vidi applications. Uithol experienced it personally. To his surprise, his institute, the Donders Centre for Cognition, did not give him permission to write a Vidi application this year, he says.

‘My ideas are too valuable to just disappear into the trash’

An internal, anonymous assessment committee found its research plans too vague. ‘A bit strange, because I had submitted the same proposal as I did for the ERC. In fact, it mainly received excellent reviews. But there was no chance for a reply, because I was not allowed not explain my proposal in person. ‘

With the stricter rules, the Radboud University Executive Board wants to offer researchers certainty about their careers at an earlier stage. So that this does not depend on whether or not a large personal grant is brought in. Uithol can follow that logic and the good intentions behind it, he says, but the practical implementation is now very strict. At least within his institute. ‘It comes down more to gatekeeper policy than to personnel policy. Moreover, it is strange that such strict requirements apply to the Vidi, but submitting an ERC is not a problem.’

In the trash

Uithol is not the person to sit down now. ‘But it’s amazing how hard you can fall in a short time. In June you are still the prime candidate and you get support from all sides. A few months later you are on unemployment benefits. I very much hope that the university will critically evaluate its Vidi rules. Such simple policy choices have far-reaching consequences for the researchers involved. ‘

His chances for a Vidi are certainly not worse next year, he expects. On the contrary. ‘Then I have an even stronger CV, because a few nice publications are coming up. But I will certainly not bet on one horse, and also talk to other faculties or universities. I still think my ideas are too valuable to just disappear into the trash.’