We are talking to Dr Stephen Venn from the Department of Invertebrate Zoology and Hydrology at the Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection of the University of Lodz. He participated in the preparation of applications for the 2024 COST Action call and also took part in the evaluation of proposals for the EU MCSA call.
What was the biggest challenge for you?
I participated in two consortia in the 2024 COST call. I was also involved in a third consortium that will probably prepare a proposal for the 2025 call. In my opinion, the biggest challenge is finding a good consortium that you fit and finding one’s own active role in the consortium.
How is a consortium formed?
The process begins by going to conferences and becoming actively involved in networks relevant to your research interests. When you are at the conference, it doesn’t help anything to sit quietly at the back and just talk to colleagues from your own university. Go to huge congresses and small meetings and try to get involved. It also helps to look for opportunities for collaborative writing initiatives. If you can meet a group of people interested in a common topic and begin working on a manuscript together, or preparing a proposal for any relevant call, that all helps you get used to collaboratively developing ideas in a logical framework.
How did the consortium partners share tasks in preparing the application?
This varies very much between different consortia and mostly depends on the leader. It usually begins with bringing together potential partners to brainstorm about the proposal and begin drafting a plan. Then, they may review the situation, look for gaps in their expertise and look for new partners to fill those gaps. However, in the case of COST proposals, it is more usual that the consortium is based on a large network of researchers that have already been working together for a long time.
What was your role in preparing application for COST Action?
In one consortium, I worked with a network that I have been involved with for 11 years. I was used to working with most of the other partners and took responsibility for aspects I was interested in and knowledgeable about, such as Nature-based Solutions, Ecosystem Services, Sustainability.
The other proposal was new to me. This was a large consortium that had successfully obtained funding for a DUT proposal (Driving Urban Transitions). I made contact with them through a DUT event and joined their proposal. After successful collaboration on a smaller proposal, I was invited to participate in their COST Action proposal. In that one, I only worked within a small sub-group of Polish, Norwegian and Danish partners, working on a small sub-project. I was not involved in the rest of the proposal. In both proposals, we primarily worked through online meetings.
What was the greatest accomplishment for you?
Every success is an accomplishment in this business. Recognize your accomplishments and learn from them, as you should also learn from failures. The greatest success is to submit a proposal that you are satisfied with. It’s also a sucess to bring a good consortium together and make it work well, regardless of whether the proposal is good or even submitted. Generally, if you are not happy with the proposal, it is best not to submit it. However, if some nice ideas have been developed in a consortium, it is good to look for other opportunities to use them and further develop them. This can be included in a different proposal or a manuscript.
What benefits, personal and professional, did you gain from participating in the application preparation?
The main benefit is the development of management and leadership skills. They come from being bold, getting involved and taking on new challenges. Some of these skills can be learnt from courses, though I think the best way is to learn from practice. When you begin your academic career, you generally have quite a narrow range of academic skills and interests. Through engaging with different groups, you may find novel connections between your own research and other disciplines or topics.
Additionally, to succeed in most EU funding calls nowadays, it is necessary to give a lot of thought to connections between your research and EU policy, societal challenges, etc. It is easiest to pick that up by collaborating with people that already have a strong grasp of policy. It is also helpful to attend relevant events in Brussels. These can help you become involved in dialogue about research and policy. I also recommend registration as an expert in the EU databases and try to get involved in evaluating proposals. Through that, one learns more about preparing good proposals and avoiding pitfalls than through any other kind of training.
You have participated in the evaluation of applications for the EU MCSA call. What does this process look like?
The application process is very rigorous and strictly controlled. Each application is assessed by three evaluators. Each evaluator assesses several applications. I assessed six.
The protocol for evaluating proposals is nowadays quite standard over most EU funding instruments. The main categories are Excellence, Impact and Implementation. Under each category there are a number of points to be evaluated. The first stage is to write comments and identify weaknesses. Then all three evaluators evaluating each proposal work together on the prepration of a Consensus Report that reflects and combines the comments of all three. When the content is agreed, then we suggest appropriate scores.
It is important to note that the evaluation criteria are also used to design the application forms, so the form guides the coordinator to provide precisely the information that the evaluators need to make their evaluations. The number of proposals that are impressive because the idea is good and it is well-developed, and also complete all sections of the application form really well, is very few.
There are many that, as an evaluator, you like and hope will do well, but then one or two sections are not completed well, and you know that the proposal has no longer any chance of getting funded if it loses too many points in a critical section. As we were instructed, the major task of evaluators is to distinguish the excellent (i.e. fundebale) proposals from the very good ones. In last years COST call, there were a huge number of proposals (more than 1000 proposals were submitted, out of which only 70 will be funded), so only proposals that address all parts of the form excellently will have a possibility of getting funded. Keep in mind that the evaluators are all different and their academic backgrounds are different. Most focus on specific aspects and pay less attention to others. This means that there is subjectivity in the process. It happens very often that each of us has different ideas about which are the best proposals. However, the weakest proposals are generally easily recognisable to everyone.
What should you do to prepare a good application and increase your chances of success?
If you want to stand any chance of getting funded, you need to go through the guidenlines on how to prepare the proposal extremely carefully, and provide all the information that you are prompted to give in the application form. Make sure that you convince the evaluators that you address each aspect perfectly, and don’t assume that the evaluators will understand anything without you explaining it very clearly. Try also to exceed the required level and stand out from the mass of good proposals. The most impressive proposals are the ones that go way above the minimum required level described in the notes. Just ticking boxes won’t get you funded: you need to be innovative.
What would you say to people who are considering participating in the COST Action?
These days, EU research funding is quite unified. There are many different funding instruments, but the policy context and evaluation process and protocols are very similar in all of them. What you learn from one proposal of funding instrument will also help you in another. If you want to get EU funding, it requires intensive work. The best way is to get yoursef involved at the first opportunity.
Personally I prefer to lead consortia. That is because I have diverse and broad networks, I like to work collaboratively and I am particularly interested in conceptual work, which is generally at the core of most proposals. If I lead it, I can choose whom to include and build up teams of people I trust and know what they are suitable for. If I go into a novel consortium, with many people and a leader I don’t know, that is a risk. However, that is also the only way to expand your networks. Besides, you can always drop out if it doesn’t feel good.
I also advice you never to join a consortium that is preparing a proposal for a deadline that is less than three months away, unless they really do have a very well-developed proposal. There are also a number of small funding instruments, such as ERASMUS, DUT, Biodiversa+ etc, in which you can work with fairly small consortia on focused ideas. That is a good way to begin.
COST actions are great mechanisms for facilitating collaboration in relatively large networks, from which it is possible to develop proposals for large Horizon Europe funding calls. If you want a successful career in the EU funded research, then you need to be collaborative and get involved with relevant networks. If you find networks that are capable of preparing good COST proposals, then they will have a lot of potential for boosting your career in many ways.
Source: Dr Stephen Venn, Department of Invertebrate Zoology and Hydrobiology, Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, University of Lodz
Edit: Kamila Knol-Michałowska, Promotion Centre of the Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, University of Lodz