From the number of emails I am receiving, I guess it is that time of the year where researchers start writing their application for the Marie Sklodowska Curie Action – Individual Fellowship (MSCA-IF or just MC if you do not like long acronyms).
Since I get always similar questions, I decided to summarize them here together with their answers. I hope you will find them useful!
Am I good enough?
Before even getting into the tips and tricks, let us face the first common question: “am I good enough?” And the short answer I usually give is: “yes and no.“ Let us try to see why.
I do not know you personally, but I think most scientists have the potential to produce a really high-quality submission. So, most likely you are in this group, congratulations!
The problem, however, is that your first drafts are going to be terrible. Nor even close to what you will need to achieve. So you will have to re-draft it almost from zero several times just to produce something that will look like an MC application.
So, do not worry: you do not need any superpower. What you need are the right approach and a ginormous amount of work. Here I will take care of explaining the approach; the rest is up to you.
Are you ready?
What you actually need
Tons of hours of work aside, I think there are 3 points which are fundamental for approaching this type of work. “Fundamental” means that if you lack any of them you are really likely to be out. These points are:
- The right mindset
- The right project
- The right CV
Let us start with the first!
1. The right mindset
A lot of courses on writing articles and grants start telling you to be positive and believe in yourself. Personally, I think this is a big mistake.
The first problem is that many of us do not feel like anything special. And the more someone tells us “you are so amazing!” the worse we feel. Indeed, we may even feel the urge to explain in details how average (or even below this level) we are.
The other problem with this approach is more related to logic and math: if everyone is amazing, then it means we are just average. And remember: your application does not need to be “as amazing and unique as everyone’s else.” No, it needs to score in the top 10%.
So, here I will not try to force you to think that you are special, that you are made of dead stars (this statement is true for anything on Earth, including garbage, by the way) or other hyper-positive stuff.
The only requirement for finding the right mindsets is to use a little imagination. Indeed, you need to imagine two characters and, little by little, you should learn to act like them.
Let us meet the first one!
The cool one
Many of us have a friend who always acts like everything she does is amazing. She presents even the most mundane events as something impressive. This is sometimes annoying but it is also the kind of mindset we need for completing several tasks that will lead us to our fellowship.
If you do not have a friend like this, you may also look at this video which shows a little the style we need 👇👇👇
When you will write your application, you should ask yourself: “how would The cool one write this sentence? How would she explain this concept?”
And let me be clear about this point: this is not about lying. Indeed, if you published 1 article you will not write anything like “I published 10 articles.” Nor will you try to mislead the reader into thinking something that is not true (to me that is still lying, even if what you wrote is technically the truth).
This mindset is about finding the cool sides of everything. For example, you may have published only one article, but it may be in a very good journal. Or maybe you were invited for writing it. And what if it got a lot of citations? That is definitely something you should mention in the application!
As I am a boring person, while describing myself, I would probably say something like: “I graduated from the X university.” But the cool one would write something like: “I graduated from a university which was listed in the top 10% of my country.” Or “I was in the top 5% students of my course.” Etc.
You do not know how you or your university ranked? Find those numbers! I told you it was a long task, but you need this to be able to write as you were the cool one.
The grumpy one
“Oh, you published on Nature? Well, every month Nature publishes a lot of articles, so you are just one of many.” For the grumpy one everything is flawed, or uninteresting; probably both.
Her help is fundamental for identifying what is not working in your application. Indeed, if you spend too much time as The cool one, you may think that your application is already pretty good and you can just do some minor adjustments. That would be a big mistake.
Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite! There are no shortcuts.
The right balance
Ok, now we have our two characters, so what should we do with them?
The first important thing is to not overdo it. Indeed, an excess in self-esteem would lead to just indulging in how great you are. Vice versa, an excess of criticism will lead to paralysis and thinking crap like: “I’ll never be able to get in the top 10%. I should just give up.”
For each new version, you will need the grumpy one to find what needs to be changed. Then, you will have to switch to the cool one and start writing about how great you and your projects are. Just, try to find an even better way to explain it in this new version. After all, you get more and more amazing with every single breath!
In the beginning, you will need the full power of the grumpy one. Indeed, you will have to re-draft the application from scratch several times. Yes, you do. I know you hate this idea, but do not listen to me, listen to the grumpy one: “do you really think something like that would get accepted? Do you really believe it would get into the top 10%? Ok, then sit down and re-draft it.“
However, as you go further, you may want to decrease the criticism more and more. Indeed, in the last versions, you should have smaller and smaller changes. In this way, your work can converge to a pretty solid piece.
Congratulations!
2. The right project
When I participated to the MSCA Falling Walls competition, I remember a participant complaining about the MC funds. He was complaining that only projects on trendy topics would get funded. And I think he was right, but that was not a good reason to be angry.
Let us make this clear: most funding agencies are not funding research per se. The world has pretty big problems: people are dying of hunger, we got climate change, cancer, TV series without an ending, etc. So, it is really difficult that someone will fund a useless project.
“But my project is not useless. It solves the problem of X, Y and Z.” Then you have to be explicit about this. You have to show that your project is important and that it deserves to be funded. You have to clearly tell the reader that they are not just paying your salary. They are investing money to make the world a better place.
“What if my project is not solving any important issue?” In that case, consider changing slightly your project. In many cases, you may introduce little changes to make it 100 times more interesting.
For example, my initial idea for my project was about models for predicting social behaviour. Since these models could be used also for addressing problems like vaccine hesitancy, I decided to focus on that. In this way, I still have to work on the models. However, the final impact of my project would not be just the introduction of new models but addressing the problem of vaccine hesitancy.
3. The right CV
“Ok, ok, ok, your project sounds pretty awesome. However, why should we give money to you? Why cannot we just find a better researcher for this (or a similar) project?”
Many people think that to get funded you need to show that you are amazing. However, even if you are able to show how great you are, you may still not be fitted for the project.
I think my story here is a pretty good example. Indeed, for my MC application, I come up with this cool project about exploring vaccine hesitancy using models of social behaviour. But there was a big problem: my background was in physics, which is totally unrelated to the project.
An extra down point was that I used to change subject quite often in the past: from quantum optics to microfluidics to biophotonics. This would have shown some lack of consistency and expertise.
If would have presented it like this, I am pretty sure now I would have no fellowship. Indeed, the committee would have thought that I was not fitted for such a project.
To show the opposite, I stressed the fact that in all my previous projects I took care of developing mathematical and computational models. So, even if I was no expert in quantum optics or microfluidics, I was actually extremely skilled in modelling.
Furthermore, as I worked in different fields I also learnt many different modelling approaches. So my modelling background was extremely vast and flexible.
As you can see, here I used the approach of the cool one to show a piece of truth that I did not immediately see: I was actually a perfect fit for the project. But I had to work pretty hard to figure this out! And if you want your application to be awarded, you will need to learn to do the same.
4. Do you need a template?
When I was writing my application another previous awardee was so nice to share with me his application. So I took a deep look into that… and I figured out it was totally useless to me.
The problem with these applications is that each one is 100% tailored to conveying a really specific message (and project). So it is almost impossible to take one submission and reshape it or use it as a template. Even taking it as inspiration is more work than just starting from scratch. It is like studying a car for understanding how you should build a spaceship. Yes, they are both vehicles. No, they do not have much in common. Just forget the car and start working on your spaceship.
However, in a future article, we will discuss how to write down each section in the way that fits your project in the best way.
5. External help
In this post, I wrote a lot of “I.” “I have done this and that…” but it is not the whole truth. A huge help was given to me by my supervisor and by the research funding officer. Without their help, I would have probably sent my terrible first or second version… and failed miserably.
This paragraph is not just for thanking them, but it is mostly to tell you that you can do the same. Doing it alone may be really too much and you may not be really good at switching between the two characters. So do not be afraid to ask for help and comments. Many people in this field know a lot of tricks.
6. The next steps…
Please, let me know if you have any comment or questions on this.
As mentioned, I plan to write part 2 in which I go more into details on how to write the application and how to tailor each section to your project. So, every suggestion is welcome.
Until next time, good luck with your application!
