Slaving away on a Veni application while you know that you probably won’t get the grant. Why do we mystify this grant so much? Britte Bouchaut wonders if this could be otherwise.
(Photo: Sam Rentmeester)
It is the end of June. Our morale has gone on holiday and has only left a postcard behind. Yet, a lot of young researchers and people at the Innovation & Impact Centre are slaving away on a pre-proposal of the Veni application. There are Word documents full of comments like ‘Too vague’, ‘Does this show enough independence?’, and the infamous ‘???’.
Welcome to the annual Veni phase – the academic equivalent of the Olympic Games. But without the audience and with an anonymous jury that will mercilessly gut your plans.
The Veni is actually a rather strange grant. The money it can give may be welcome, but the capital is really in the stamp. This is because of the meagre success rate of about 14%. Whoever thus gets a Veni also gets a label saying ‘this is someone with a future!’ And those not selected? Pfff. “It’s still good to have tried.”
Every year we put ourselves through this merciless battle in an attempt to get this gold star on our academic report. The outcome is that every year TU Delft submits 120 pre-proposals and 40 full proposals. And this would be even more if a lot of researchers were not excluded up front, first through the requirement of an embedding guarantee in 2019, and from 2021 also through the introduction of the preselection (the pre-proposal).
Who decides what a ‘little’ chance is, and can you simply take that chance away from someone?
And while we researchers are up to our ears in work, the Innovation and Impact Centre is too. So much so that they are calling on applicants who have little chance to not submit an application. This may not be a bad idea in itself. There is something to be said about advising someone who has just submitted their dissertation to wait a year or so and further work on their research vision.
On the other hand, who decides what a ‘little’ chance is, and can you simply take that chance away from someone? After all, the Veni is the to get a job as an assistant professor as a post-doc or to really get your career off the ground. And so we write. At night. In the weekend. We write, even if we sigh and think our proposal has little chance. And even if the Innovation and Impact Centre team sighs too.
Maybe we should be more honest. An application that has little chance does not ‘have to be submitted to build experience’. And a candidate without a Veni is not necessary less valuable. There are amazing researchers who have never had a Veni, and Veni winners you never hear of again.
If we would demystify the grant and treat it more for what it is – a possible route and not the only route – this talent grant and everything that comes with it would maybe be more human. But until then we continue typing, deleting, doubting, working, crying and still submitting. Because who knows…
Britte Bouchaut is an assistant professor at Safety and Security Science, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management. Britte commutes from Eindhoven to Delft on a daily base and is often angry, justifiably or not, at the world and vents her anger by writing.
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B.F.H.J.Bouchaut@tudelft.nl
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