That’s the one “nice” thing about grant rejections from NIH or NSF: they almost always contain at least two reviews. From those, you may get at least some idea of where the reviewers were coming from, in order to figure out how to fix the problems (or whether to start over).
While the “big leaps” (nobel prize winning type stuff) are what we usually hear about in the media, it is the “overcoming little hurdles” that comprises the vast majority of what working scientists actually do.
That grant was submitted, and on its first round of submission, it got a score around 5th percentile. My colleague helped me turn my grant proposal from junk into a more than fundable proposal – simply by looking at my specific aims, and nothing else.
I had a fun evening reviewing some grant proposals for graduate students taking a grant writing class. None of the proposals got me excited. I’m…
