Excellent but not funded

This post is, again, not about applying for an ERC grant, but about the research funding system and how early-career academics are struggling to get their research - and their careers - supported in the current system of resource scarcity.

It is the season of rejections - again. This time, LinkedIn and other social media are full of experiences of Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship applicants. This prestigious grant from the EU supports postdoctoral level scholars who want to do research in a country other than their own. The funding covers two years of salary for the researcher, fieldwork expenses, and so on. While prestigious, it is still a temporary postdoctoral position requiring international mobility. Still, this grant is becoming increasingly competitive.

Over the years, the success rate - the share of funded proposals in the overall pool of applications - has been decreasing. More people apply; this cycle of Marie Curie applications, 17,066 proposals were submitted, with only 9,6% funded. Many proposals that received excellent scores did not make the cut. In such cases, the authors receive a “Seal of Excellence” - a certificate acknowledging how well you did, but nothing more. Someone on LinkedIn called it a “sad” award. Indeed, this whole situation is extremely sad.

Thinking about all the work and hope that goes into these applications. Applicants work with a potential supervisor, who also gives input on the proposal. There are university-level support events for potential applicants (I participated in one of those a few years ago when I considered applying - and I can tell how much effort and resources go into them).

The number of applications has been increasing for all EU research funding schemes.

Compare ERC Starting Grants: in the 2025 call, 3,928 proposals were submitted, and in the 2026 call, 4,807. This is a 22.4% increase. The Marie Curie situation is even more alarming: a record 17,066 applications in the 2025 call compared to the previous cycle’s 10,360 proposals (with a 16.6% success rate).

What could explain this? People are learning about the funding schemes and find them increasingly attractive. But also, widespread budget cuts in science and higher education make the EU programs one of the only viable options for scholars across career stages looking for research funding. For the postdoctoral level, the Marie Curie fellowship is a great opportunity because, unlike project postdocs from my previous post, it allows the researcher to develop their own project, build a network, and add a prestigious line to their CV.

The number of submissions is also growing in the academic publishing system, and this insane increase is at least partly due to GenAI. One Marie Curie reviewer on LinkedIn shared that they notice a lot of GenAI-like text in the submitted proposals: good English, but meaningless or vague content. It is much easier now to come up with a text resembling an application or a journal article.

All this goes to reviewers, who increasingly don’t want to review anything anymore, because it’s too much and the risks of having to read AI slop are not zero.

While it is possible to explain the overall increase of submissions across systems with GenAI, I don’t think it helps explain why excellent proposals submitted to Marie Curie and other ERC schemes are not funded. So I return to my initial thought: excellent researchers apply for these schemes because there’s little else left for them at the national or university level. Research funding is disappearing, and with Marie Curie we are grasping at straws.

Merit, the quality of your proposal, doesn’t guarantee success anymore. Just like the quality of your CV and achievements doesn’t guarantee employment or promotion. It’s all becoming quite a lottery, increasing uncertainty and insecurity for academics. And there is no guarantee that it’s good for the quality of scientific output eventually.

The EU funding and the ERC specifically remain a lifeline for researchers across Europe and beyond, one of the last options for many to stay in academia and continue their research.

The increasing volume of applications creates a situation that frustrates everyone: excellent applicants, who (justly) feel that they’re missing a bit of luck rather than skill or merit; reviewers, who are overwhelmed with requests and sometimes feel that they are asked to review AI-generated applications; and even research institutions, for which obtaining external funding is a way to stay afloat and keep their research ecosystems alive. I think even the funders are in a difficult position: they have to deal with this volume, maintain their high standards of excellence and transparency, and justify their decisions while knowing that many excellent projects will go unfunded.

Finally: congratulations to those who manage to get their research funded in this system. It’s a massive achievement.