When a funding rejection feels existential

Research life has good times and bad times. Science without Anguish is all about managing these ups and downs.
 
But what about when it gets really bad? I don’t mean those ‘everyday’ frustrations, fears or aggravations. Not even overwhelm - still the most widely read topic I’ve written about.
 
I’m talking about that gut-wrenching, soul-destroying feeling when a crucial funding application is rejected, filling us with existential dread.
 
It’s topical, I know. These events are coming thick and fast right now, and I’m no exception. How we deal with them is crucial. This can quite literally destroy careers and shorten lives, and it's very, very hard to get right. 

And yet we don't talk about it. At what cost?

How can we find a way through when the abyss opens up before us?

​Balance
First, some balance. Research life has so many good sides. Too often we take them for granted, so let’s pause and reflect on them: autonomy, fascinating science, social good, great colleagues, conference experiences, new jobs, promotions, funding successes and papers.
 
Before you read on, take a short break. You deserve it. Remember how these feel, those you’ve experienced so far. Get back in touch, at deep, emotional level, with why you want to do research in the first place.
 
And next time you have a positive outcome, share it and celebrate. This a good way to deepen our experience and memory of good moments.
 
Remember too that the grass isn't greener anywhere else. Every career has its strains. And even funding rejections are not always so bad – some are more crucial than others.

​Rejections in early career
When your own salary depends on a fellowship, however, funding rejections can be particularly crushing. This can fuel a vicious cycle of self-doubt and it feels so personal. Hard work for exams or experiments used to pay off, but suddenly unseen people who never met you are criticising your best work and making decisions about your future. It’s like control has been taken away by some mystery entity.
 
Reviewer comments like “too risky”, “overambitious”, and “unimportant” pile up. Or the most deadly: “that’s already been done by [insert namedrop] and it didn’t work”. I’ve heard them all. The feelings of injustice, insecurity, despair, even betrayal, grow with each one.
 
“Perhaps I’m just not good enough”, you wonder. That’s where the real damage is done, the ‘second arrow’. That loss of self confidence because of other people's opinions causes far too many people to leave research for the wrong reasons.
 
But here’s the first dirty little secret.

You don’t need a fellowship to become a PI. I never had one, despite trying. Postdocs from my group have become PIs without one. You may have to move city or country, you may have to teach for a while, align with another PI or dip in and out of industry, but a fellowship is not the only route in academic research. Nor, contrary to popular belief, is becoming a PI. 

What happens next?
Much as I would love to boost early career researcher morale with a comforting message of “It gets better”, it's more important to be realistic. That’s a Polyanna myth. You will get ‘better’ at an awful thing called ‘grantsmanship’, but it won’t stop rejections. And some will still be really tough to handle.
 
Success rates, in my experience, go up and down with the economy but they do not progressively increase with experience and seniority. So what can you do? 
 
Remember that resilience is a learned skill. Early career, before you have too many commitments and while your neuroplasticity is high, is a particularly important time to work on this. It will help you both now and later. 

Mid-career rejections
Funding successes are important for tenure track scientists to support their case for tenure, so rejections can still feel existential. Tenured scientists are more secure but have to carve out time for applications from ever growing commitments – a team who need you, a mortgage to be paid, a partner, and perhaps kids who need stability, support, and….time with you. Rejections after neglecting health, family or friends will leave you wondering “Why am I doing this?”. Don't neglect them: they are your support network too!
 
Those earlier rejections also leave a deep and lasting legacy. Psychiatrist Steve Peters in his book A Path Through the Jungle explains how emotional memories of painful experiences lurk like ghosts in our minds, coming back to haunt us when adversity hits again. This often makes it feel worse than it really is. Coaching, or even therapy is your friend here. You don't have to face this alone.

Remember intermittent and unpredictable rewards are a well-established driver of addiction! No wonder some people hit the bottle, or worse to escape.

​There has to be another way.

Late career rejections
Even in late career, with decades of experience, one more big breakthrough still in you, and a highly valued team to support and develop, rejections still keep coming.
 
You throw everything into writing what you know in your bones is your best application ever. Positive and constructive feedback from colleagues improves it still further. You submit it and (classic mistake!) anticipate how you might use the funding. And wham! It gets triaged out!  One rogue reviewer trashes it without understanding a word you had written. You’re not even given chance to respond.
 
The human cost cuts as deep as ever. Neglecting your health matters even more as you get older. Members of your team have kids, mortgages, visas, all depending on the salary you are trying to secure for them. You wake at 5am, 4am, 3am in a cold sweat, wondering how on earth you will fund them.  It’s no longer your kids’ first years you are neglecting but your elderly or dying parents’ last. 

We must talk about this
How do I know all this? Because I’ve been there and bought all the T-shirts. Because countless conversations with other scientists – in supervising, mentoring, coaching and over conference dinners – tell me this experience is not unusual. And because, sadly, I know it has a particularly serious impact on some people in ways that have nothing to do with scientific potential.
 
We can’t truly address wellbeing in research while ignoring this topic. 

It’s all about the story
We have to accept some hard truths: there is not enough funding for every good scientist and we have to uphold scientific standards somehow.
 
The problem is the stories we tell ourselves about the decision process. We hear one day how peer review selects ‘only the best' projects. The next day we receive our rejection letter for an application that took us up to, or perhaps beyond, our limit. What message does that give us?
 
Time for the second dirty little secret.

I’ve sat on grant committees. I’ve reviewed hundreds of grants and fellowships and interviewed dozens of fellowship candidates. I know the conversations that take place. I know the doubts, I know the uncertainties, I know the uncomfortable feelings about some decisions.
 
What I’ve learned is that committee members do their best with this weighty responsibility. They know how it feels as an applicant. But they are tasked with comparing apples and pears when their own expertise lies in oranges, lemons and pineapples. Nobody has universal knowledge. Nobody has a crystal ball. Nobody knows what unexpected results await – it’s research, after all. Or how your plans might synergise with discoveries yet to be published by other groups, or what ideas your project could spark in the mind of your talented student or postdoc who then develops it into their own breakthroughs.

On top of this, committee members all have different personalities, different unconscious biases, different moods on different days, and a busy day job that doesn’t leave them alone to focus solely on your application.
 
Beyond a certain point, the notion of an objective, definitive ranking is an illusion.
 
A retrospective look at 30 years of my own applications provides orthogonal confirmation. Some projects I was funded for 20-30 years ago went absolutely nowhere. Others were rejected, some several times, but eventually proved groundbreaking when we, or someone else, found a way to do them. Some decisions did align with impact but I struggle to see any strong correlation. I still see similar patterns today and conversations with others show that, once again, I am not alone. ​

Saving sanity
If we are serious about retaining good people and good scientists in research, and about supporting their wellbeing and mental health , we must break the taboo on talking about this topic.

That begins with more people sharing what they have been through, and their ways of dealing with it. Please do so if you can. You will find it therapeutic!
 
In the meantime, here are my own, well-used tips for surviving, and at least minimising anguish.
 
First, share it. Share it with those who love you, who will remind you what truly matters. Share it with your team, who not only have a right to know the implications for themselves but may be more supportive than you expect. And, if you’re up to it, share it with the wider scientific community. It is a huge silver lining if your anguish can somehow help others see they are not going through this alone. And share it with a coach if you have one. I’ve embraced coaching since 2020 and it can be game changing.
 
Second, think about your own psychology. Research into the ‘illusion of control’ shows that humans (note: scientists are humans!) are hard-wired to overestimate the role of skill in tasks that involve a combination of skill and luck. Grant applications clearly involve both so have we got our perceptions wrong?  They were not the subject of that study but what a research project that would make! Any psychologists out there – please write that particular grant proposal today and suggest me as a reviewer!
 
Third, listen to others. You quickly learn that you are not alone and that rejection takes out even the best science. Temporarily!
 
Fourth, if you know you have the right idea, but others fail to see it yet, stick with it and find whatever way you need to survive in the meantime. Adapt or update with new ideas and developments of course, but even if it takes a decade or more, persistence will pay off in the end.
 
Fifth, when you review an application from anyone, be robust, but also be accurate, kind and humble. Peer review, when it works, is the least worst system we have for upholding scientific standards and this matters. But remember there is a human being on the other end. None of us deserves special treatment but everyone deserves a thorough, fair and respectful assessment.
 
Finally, when you get funded – because this does happen sometimes – celebrate like your life depends on it!
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Coaching opportunities
Having recently completed the Cambridge Advanced Executive Coaching Programme at the Møller Institute, Churchill College, Cambridge, I am delighted to offer coaching opportunities at a price affordable to academic researchers at postdoctoral level and beyond, or to PhD programmes looking to support their student cohorts. Please send expressions of interest to Maria at [email protected]