Excellent, not exceptional
This summer, my third attempt at ERC consolidator grant failed. So, third time was not a charm, and my carefully polished research application did not get funding.
And this breaks my heart. It breaks my heart because the research described in that application was not only to have improved my possibilities to do ground-breaking research, but it would also have improved in-house research with at least eight museums. The investigation of imaginaries and practices of datafication will have to find another form, place and time. And it will. Eventually. When I get over the grief.
Meanwhile, I get to reflect on the feedback given to the project and, through that, also reflect on the harshness of academia. Four people read and gave their comments on my proposal and also evaluated my capacities as a potential PI. Excellent, Excellent, Very good, Exceptional. So, one gets to moan - I am excellent, but not exceptional enough. Is it so bad? Is it not enough to be very good at what I do? To excel in supporting others, creating environments, making space for ideas, and developing those ideas. In the ever-competitive funding situation, however, one also has to have convinced the reader of the exceptional nature of the research leader and the urgent and compelling nature of the problem. When after three rounds of honing the focus, elaborating on the details, and outlining the practicalities of my proposal, the funding still does not come through. And then you realise that the problem is not the feasibility or practical nature of your application. The problem is that no one was willing to champion the proposal in the committee. My ideas did not catch the fancy of the committee members. I was excellent but not exceptional.
Has it been worthless - no, certainly not. I have learned a lot, a lot about project application writing, managing time, planning research and about dreaming. I have published one paper from the proposal - a theoretical framework that can still carry an investigation of the datafication processes in the museum. I will, most likely, publish another paper on the theoretical ideas. And perhaps there will eventually also be a book. A book about data and datafication. But the scope of the investigation will, most likely, not be a pan-European inventory; rather, it will take a smaller, closer and more limited look.
I will use and re-use the bits and pieces of this application. I will share and draft and develop the ideas there. I will work on the ideas of practical theory, and it will, eventually, come through. But first, I will grieve for the fact that I am excellent but not exceptional.
Meanwhile, I get to reflect on the feedback given to the project and, through that, also reflect on the harshness of academia. Four people read and gave their comments on my proposal and also evaluated my capacities as a potential PI. Excellent, Excellent, Very good, Exceptional. So, one gets to moan - I am excellent, but not exceptional enough. Is it so bad? Is it not enough to be very good at what I do? To excel in supporting others, creating environments, making space for ideas, and developing those ideas. In the ever-competitive funding situation, however, one also has to have convinced the reader of the exceptional nature of the research leader and the urgent and compelling nature of the problem. When after three rounds of honing the focus, elaborating on the details, and outlining the practicalities of my proposal, the funding still does not come through. And then you realise that the problem is not the feasibility or practical nature of your application. The problem is that no one was willing to champion the proposal in the committee. My ideas did not catch the fancy of the committee members. I was excellent but not exceptional.
Has it been worthless - no, certainly not. I have learned a lot, a lot about project application writing, managing time, planning research and about dreaming. I have published one paper from the proposal - a theoretical framework that can still carry an investigation of the datafication processes in the museum. I will, most likely, publish another paper on the theoretical ideas. And perhaps there will eventually also be a book. A book about data and datafication. But the scope of the investigation will, most likely, not be a pan-European inventory; rather, it will take a smaller, closer and more limited look.
I will use and re-use the bits and pieces of this application. I will share and draft and develop the ideas there. I will work on the ideas of practical theory, and it will, eventually, come through. But first, I will grieve for the fact that I am excellent but not exceptional.
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