Evaluation reports – summary and lessons to be learned

Research Network Horizon
5

I did not know the process of consortium building and proposal writing; hence, I have no insights into ‘who missed what &when’?. My view is shaped along the following lines:

  1. Assuming that you had a standard process of ‘consortium building and proposal writing’ the distribution of strengths and weaknesses will follow the ‘standard model’ (whatever this is) that leads to a typical H2020 success rate (of single proposals) of (let’s assume) 15% (figure may be lower). This means that being in four proposals has a’ likelihood to gain’: 0,0005 for 4 grants; 0,0115 for 3 grants; 0,0975 for 2 grants; 0,3685 for 1 grant; and 0,5220 for 0 grant.

  2. Taking a success rate of 12% rises the likelihood of ‘no grant in four’ to 60% and lowers the likelihood for ‘one grant in four’ to 33%. Hence, statistically your outcome is not shocking!

  3. What is to check is the assumption _‘H2020 standard process of consortium building and proposal writing’. You may have faced less favourable conditions; but the statistics do not indicate it!

  4. Under the assumption ‘H2020 standard process of consortium building and proposal writing’ the most likely root cause ‘to have messed it up, in the end’ has to be something that damaged features of the proposal that would be needed to exceed the ‘85%-is-good-level’. That means, that the devil is in ‘what the writer considers as less relevant’ (=small or finer granularity).

Against the background of the above, my reading of the excerpts from the proposal assessment is that too many of the (small / considered as less relevant) features were missed that are 'needed to exceed the ‘85%-is-good-level’. It is hard, but a proposal has to be written to match the ‘95%-is-good-level’ to have a fair chance in a statistical sense and not being pure lottery.

My reading of proposals is/was ‘from the end’ (= what does the proposer plans to do when the work proposed ‘here’ is achieved). In cases that applicants have an idea about the step ‘N+1’ then (more often) they have (more) comprehensive understanding of ‘what to do now’ (step ‘N’). My reading of the excerpts from the proposal assessment is that ‘suchlike features’ were missing (too) frequently.

I hope that these lines help to handle this less-comforting experience.
Martin

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