Your own project, your own life!!

Probably, the best way to start this blog is... from the beginning. I arrived in Japan in September 2021 as the outgoing period of a Global Fellowship project which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 886232 and here I will shortly describe the project aims.

First, the Global Fellowship are grants "open to European nationals or long-term residents who wish to engage in R&I projects with organisations outside EU Member States" These fellowships require an outgoing phase of minimum 12 and maximum 24 months, as in my case, in a non-associated Third Country. For the reason outlined below, I chose JAPAN 🇯🇵 as hosting country.

After the outgoing period there is a mandatory 12-month return phase to a host organisation based in an EU Member State which in my case is ITALY 🇮🇹.

The hosting organizations are RIKEN in Japan, and Padova University in Italy.

My project has been founded in the MSCA 2019 program with Total score: 96.00% 🎊

96% is pretty good isn't it? Well well well... I must say that it was actually my third resubmission! So my suggestion is: if you believe in your idea, don't give up!

The first time I applied I got a score of about 90.20%, still good in my opinion, but far from the funding level. Nonetheless, the score was in the range of the Seal of Excellence! Which is important because it gives you the opportunity to be funded under some smaller grants.

The second time the score was 78.80% 😱. Out even from the SoE range!! So, was I smart or was I lucky? Well, I think I can say that many things can happen, you can apply in a very competitive year, or in a less competitive one, you can end up to the "wrong" committee or to a "good" one (someone who deeply know your subject of research for instance). Citing a sentence I heard many years ago in a conference: we should be smart enough to be lucky to be funded by a MSCA grant, but when you got it, you can develop your own project! And travel the world as well!! Paid!!! (well paid). Isn't it amazing?

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