If you ask any academic to name the least enjoyable aspects of academic life, grant writing will almost certainly rank near the top of the list. Just over a week ago, the European Commission released its results for the most recent cycle of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) postdoctoral fellowship, revealing over 17,000 applicants in the year of 2025 alone.

For context, there were around 10,000 applicants in the previous cycle of 2024. Ever since Trump took office and declared an intellectual war on science and higher education that year, hundreds, if not thousands, of US academics have since flocked to the EU, hoping to find greener pastures to conduct research. This has resulted in a 60% increase in application rate for the most prestigious fellowship award in Europe in a single year alone! And among these thousands of applications, only 1,600 of these projects received funding – a miniscule 9.6%!

It is well-known in any field of academia that research money is forever scarce, and academics spend an exorbitant amount of time (and mental health) chasing after grants to keep their research going. Yet, the latter has received much less attention in the media, and nobody really spares a second thought to the sheer number of man-hours poured into grant proposals that ultimately never see the light of day. 

Just how much time goes into unsuccessful research proposals?

Writing a grant proposal is extremely time-consuming, even for highly competent academics with many years of experience under their belts. Extremely prestigious and competitive grants such as the MSCA often demand more than just a good idea. Serious proposals will often require a highly detailed plan of their research question, hypotheses, experimental design and budget even before knowing whether their research idea is of interest to the funding committee. What this means is that academics often spend a ridiculous amount of time mapping out the tiniest steps of a project in a proposal that might never see the light of day. There is little to no room for ambiguity, for deviation and for exploration, even if something interesting pops up.

Just how bad is it? For the sake of example, suppose a proposal for a prestigious fellowship such as the MSCA requires 150 hours (roughly equivalent to a full month’s work stretched across 6-9 months in a single grant cycle). Taking the results of the MSCA call 2025 as an example, 15,456 proposals did not make the cut. In total, that is 15,456 x 150 = 2,318,400 uncompensated man-hours! To put that number into perspective, assuming one works a 40-hour work week, that’s over 1,100 years of work down the drain FOR A SINGLE CYCLE FOR A SINGLE GRANT!

Now repeat the process for all the different grants out there in the world, be it the NIH, the NSF, etc…

The Sisyphean road to research money

Because the success rate of grant applications is so low, society bears a ginormous  cost in forcing the brightest minds on the planet to do what is essentially marketing, rather than actual scientific output. Dr. Geraldine Fitzpatrick summed it up very nicely in her TEDx talk that nowadays, scientists spend more time “talking about their research rather than actually doing research.”

Could this be a result of scientists poorly communicating the need for their research? It might be, but given the rather large proportion of high scores among MSCA proposals, it seems unlikely that poor writing is the main cause of unsuccessful proposals. For example, according to the scoring statistics of the MSCA (EF-ENV, representing environmental sciences), over 49% of the 1,700 proposals scored at least a 90/100; yet only proposals with a score of 97 or higher (~8%) were funded. In other words, the researchers who vetted these proposals generally thought that most proposals across the board were sound; yet only a select few could be funded due to budget limitations. At some point past a score >90, from a scientific merit standpoint, one’s proposal is unlikely to distinguish itself significantly from others in the field and any differences becomes solely up to 1) the biases of the reviewers, 2) the ability to mitigate risks (or at least communicate the perception of doing so), and 3) sheer luck. If you happened to apply with a famous big-shot in your field who has the resources to guarantee the success of a project – great! Otherwise, the scoring criteria essentially filters out anyone who 1) works in a niche/controversial field unknown or hated by reviewers, and 2) does not have the security of a resource-rich host/supervisor.

Writing a grant proposal feels like this sometimes

While I think some element of randomness is unavoidable when choosing which research projects to fund, I am much less fond of the idea of a funding system that leads to centuries of man-hours wasted on crafting applications that may never get funded however scientifically sound. Furthermore, because the process of crafting a grant application is so demanding and precise (literally requesting a detailed outline of one’s experimental design), I wouldn’t be surprised if risk-averse projects become increasingly favored over more speculative, but potentially rewarding work.

Alternatives to the current funding landscape?

I don’t know if there exist good alternatives to the current Sisyphean road to research money which costs millions of academics worldwide crippling anxiety and sleepless nights annually. But a few organizations have boldly explored novel options. For example, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute has adopted a funding system where hired investigators, not projects, are awarded research money to freely pursue a broad spectrum of questions within biomedical research. Others have suggested adding a (pseudo)lottery system within the pool of eligible, high-quality proposals to occasionally select for more speculative, diverse studies that would normally not receive funding through the traditional peer review system. Each of these proposed systems have their own pros and cons, and many of them challenge traditional perceptions of who/what deserves to be funded. Should the “best” scoring proposal win (however one defines “best”)? Or should diversity (in terms of race, stage of career, etc.) be prioritized to give less established researchers a shot? A straightforward answer isn’t obvious…

If I was placed in a position of authority to decide, this would be my preferred system to fund research projects:

1. Because crafting a full-length proposal with detailed experimental design, budgets and logistics is so taxing (and a grossly inefficient use of time) for both institutions and researchers, the first stage should prioritize “interest” rather than details. The initial stage could involve a submission (~2 pages long) that demands only a minimal investment of resources, emphasizing the importance and novelty of the research idea conveyed succinctly (shark tank style but with more scientific rigor).
2. Following that stage, only those selected will then be forced to submit further details to explain their methodologies broadly, showing the potential contributions of their proposed study towards science regardless of research outcome.
3. A third step could inquire a project’s capacity to build people and institutions within science. For example, does the project support budding researchers? If you have been awarded a grant before, why then should the extra resources go to you over a more junior researcher who’s just starting out? Having this step discourages large, resource-rich labs from perpetrating the Matthew effect.
4. Finally, after screening for those with sufficiently coherent and sound methodologies that meaningfully build up the scientific community, a final lottery system could be put into place, since all remaining proposals will have been deemed to be sufficiently interesting, novel, sound while meaningfully building up the scientific community.

What do you think should be the way to decide which scientific studies receive funding? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

Ok, got to go – I got a fellowship proposal to write.