What to do if your research funding application is unsuccessful

Having your application rejected is a painful experience. You will understandably feel upset and may view the decision as a professional set-back. However, a 'no' from one potential funder is certainly not the end of the process.

• Don’t take it personally, they rejected your proposal not you.
• The average success rate for most funders is between 10%-20%.
• Every academic will have more rejections than successes in their career.

Give yourself time. Allow a week or so to recover, says Candace Hassall, Head of Researcher Affairs at the biomedical funder Wellcome in London. “When people are turned down, they are angry and upset. Let that play out” she says. Put the application to one side for a few days before you consider your next steps.

Share your setback. Discussing the grant rejection with colleagues, mentors and others can provide emotional support in the short term, and give you constructive feedback to help you to reapply for the grant when you are ready. “People whose grants have been rejected might not want to tell anybody, but getting advice and input can really help,” says Karen Noble, Head of Research Careers at Cancer Research UK.

Remember that a good idea is no guarantee of success. Proposals that rate very good or even excellent can be rejected because the budget is simply not available. Once you have recovered from the initial shock, remember that this is an important learning opportunity and a time to look critically at your application.

Then you can decide why your application was rejected, how you could make it stronger and which components are salvageable. The first question to ask is whether resubmission possible. If it is, is this the best way forward, or should you consider another funder or scheme with aims that are more closely matched to your own?

Work out why your application was rejected

Rejections often boil down to (1) the committee thought the research question wasn’t sufficiently important or relevant or (2) the committee couldn’t see how the project would answer the question. The first step is to go through the comments from the referees (and from the panel, if available) very carefully and to use their conclusions to re-asses your application. Refer to this feedback during the re-drafting process.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Will your project contribute to answering a question that the funder has defined (explicitly or implicitly) as important?
• Did your application address the priorities of the call specifically enough? Does it look as if these were a secondary consideration?
• Is what you plan to do completely clear?
• Is it clear what will be discovered by each phase of the project?
• Could other people think this area is a backwater rather than a niche?
• Did you clearly and completely answer the questions in every section of the application form?

How to salvage your application

Rewriting the same application is unlikely to be successful. Even if you send it to a different funder, it is possible that it will go to the same referees, who were obviously selected first time as experts in your field. The best plan is to look at your current application critically and decide which work packages/sub-projects should be used going forward and whether they should be combined with different sub-projects. Consider whether the introduction was relevant and clear, and whether there was a good balance between background and plans. Mark useful parts to salvage and recycle.

Go through your subprojects/work packages: are they coherent, do they fit together, are they all worth pursuing? Develop a portfolio of subprojects and look at different combinations. Is there one package that is weak and may let you down?

It may also be useful to consider what you can take away from your experience of writing and submitting your application:

• Did you run out of time and end up planning in a rush?
• Did you have to rewrite after discovering details about the call specification that you missed first time?
• Did you get sufficient input from senior colleagues, or not allow colleagues enough time to read your draft thoroughly?
• Did you take full advantage of the support available within your institution?

Plans for the future

Before you start reapplying, research the competition and learn from the strengths of other proposals. Find out which of your senior colleagues regularly reviews grant applications. Ask if you can see the applications they have to assess and write your own review. See how this compared with your senior colleagues’ assessment. Apply to sit on reviewer panels yourself. This lets you see what the competition is like and the standard necessary for a successful application.

One possible approach is to split up your project and target different funders. This is something you could do while waiting for the outcomes of other applications. You are building an area – calling on your own work and very similar background literature.

It is worth remembering that rejection is slightly less painful if you have other applications still being considered, so think about other strands of research you could pursue. Consider developing a portfolio of activities, aiming for different strands of funding to cover various aspects of your work, rather seeking one major grant.

Finally, remember is that submitting a lot of mediocre applications is very unlikely to increase your likelihood of success; aim for quality, not quantity.