From the very beginning, the Life Science Network project was planned as a non-profit initiative supported by public funding. In this article, we reflect on our disappointing experiences with European Commission grant calls.

In the first grant application we submitted to the European Commission (EC), we proposed building this platform, Life Science Network. Back in 2011, after having worked in the life sciences for about 10 years, we felt there was a way to better connect scientists and improve the research process by developing a novel kind of digital infrastructure. Since we recognized the same goals in the rhetoric of the EC, we decided to prepare and submit a proposal for funding through their Future and Emerging Technologies funding scheme. That was the only continuous call for applications available at the time.

After going through all the documentation, learning all the language and acronyms, registering, learning how to use the online application submission system and assembling the consortium, we finalized and submitted our proposal.

Ultimately, our application was rejected. The main reason was the lack of experience with executing projects of the kind we proposed. The decision letter was sent eight weeks later than the scheduled date. Since we believed the reviewers to be wrong, we submitted a redress. It took another year to get a response to the redress.

When speaking to other researchers about our experience, we heard interesting anecdotes. One was from an EC grant reviewer who was apparently instructed by the officers in Brussels as to which proposal should get the highest rating. After refusing to follow the instructions of the EC officers, it was his opinion that they instructed other reviewers to score the pre-chosen proposal higher in order for the average score to be over the threshold required for funding. Another seasoned researcher with a record of projects getting funded was surprised we didn't go to Brussels. He said it is typical for the first proposal to get rejected, and that he recommends going to Brussels to lobby for the project, so that next time the call can be written in a way that matches the project better, giving it a higher chance of getting funded.

Note also that if you have an excellent idea, related to a very novel technology which just emerged, in most cases you won't be able to get it funded, if no calls for applications covering that topic are available. So you will first have to wait about two to three years for EC to recognize the importance of the topic and announce a suitable call. Then add another year to actually get the money. By that time, it's probably going to be too late to make a pioneering contribution to the field.

Second proposal

The second project we submitted had to do with impact of social media websites on science. This was a two-stage proposal. We had a larger consortium and more experience than the first time. Yet this proposal was also rejected. The main reason was that we didn't mention technical details about how we planned to execute the study. While we omitted this part because the guidelines strictly prohibited technical details to be included in the first stage short proposal, apparently some information was expected.

The decision was delivered six weeks later than it was supposed to be.

Strike three

After getting the second proposal rejected, we decided not to submit any more proposals. Even when we started playing with the idea of building the Science Simplified platform, which aligns perfectly with the Commission's goals of bringing science closer to the public, we concluded it is not worth the effort. We decided to start working on the platform straight away, instead of wasting time preparing a proposal. About six months after we started, the initial version of the platform was online.

However, eventually we changed our minds and submitted a third proposal. In 2014, after learning about a call from another agency to fund open science transformation-related projects (German Research Foundation – Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG), we prepared and submitted a proposal to DFG. In our application we proposed to build a novel kind of digital infrastructure for dissemination and evaluation of research results (SPLICE), a concept we developed together with John Lock, an associate professor at Karolinska Institute whom I met at a science meeting in Heidelberg in 2013. The proposal was rejected without review (read here). Since the proposal was written, and because the EC launched a similar call with the deadline in autumn 2015, we decided to modify the proposal and submit it to the EC. With all the previous experience in mind, we invested less time in preparing the proposal, but still wanted to submit it, hoping the EC would at least read it and give us some feedback in the evaluation report.

The call information can be seen here. The proposal is attached below, as is the negative decision letter.

What did we learn from the comments? Well, that our proposal is bad. Other than that, pretty much nothing. Personally, I can't shake off the feeling that this review could be applied to any other proposal. There is nothing in there that would suggest how our proposal could be improved and there is no feedback on our concept.

Conclusion

When submitting grant applications to the EC, you can expect: decision delays, difficult communication, lack of reply to emails and messages due to various reasons, and horrible experience with accessing or using the submission portal. Things like email change, or URL change of your organization, are something that requires an inquiry with the help desk, if possible at all. Expect last minute changes. The web link to the last call we applied to was changed 48 hours prior to the application deadline. Once we eventually found the call again, the submission link was missing. The link was restored 24 hours prior to deadline following our inquiry through all available communication channels. These sorts of issues are both distressing and embarrassing for an institution of the EC’s caliber.

As I read in a blog post last year, in some cases the chance of getting a project funded by EC seems to be as small as around 1-2%. With no proper feedback on proposals, possibility of call rigging, all the technical issues and a rigid system of calls which is not suitable for supporting fast-evolving or emerging research areas – one has to question the credibility and competence of the EC in managing European research funding. Continuing to operate the system in its current form will only lead to more wasted resources and result in sub-optimal returns for our society.

For our part, the conclusion is clear. We shall submit no more proposals to the EC. Three attempts are enough to learn that we don't know how to write “successful” proposals. Also, we have to consider the possibility that our goals aren't as aligned with those of the EC as we originally thought. We can only hope that our ideas will be recognized by other stakeholders who believe in the same kinds of values we represent.