Biophysical Society Bulletin | March 2022

Career Development

How to Deal with Repeated Rejection in Academia? Although you may hear people exalting the advantages of working in academia, it is well documented that academics face significant amounts of rejection throughout their careers, 1 from being an early-career researcher (ECR) to the

grant writing and grant rejection. In particular, there was a tweet from the Alfred Nobel Foundation sharing a picture of Sir Peter Ratcliffe sitting at his desk working on his EU Synergy Grant application, just after learning he had been awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. 2 This tweet was followed by the widely disseminated copy of the 1992 desk rejection from Nature magazine that Ratcliffe received for the work that would lead to his Nobel prize. 3 Indeed, the pressure of grant writing is so intense because only a few applications are funded. Although it is estimated that the National Institutes of Health funds ~20% of grant applications, only 10% of the Research Project grant, or R01 grant, is funded. Because of this pressure applied to everyone in academia, rejection is inherent- ly universal. I hope these observations can help ease your worries a little. — Molly Cule 1. Blackwell, K. A. 2010. They’re just not that into your research: rejection in academia. APS Observer 23, https:/www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/ rejection-in-academia. National Institutes of Health: Bioengineering Research Grants The purpose of this opportunity is to encourage collab- orations between the life and physical sciences that: 1) apply a multidisciplinary bioengineering approach to the solution of a biomedical problem, and 2) accelerate the adoption of promising tools, methods, and techniques for a specific research or clinical problem in basic, transla- tional, or clinical science and practice. An application may propose design-directed, developmental, discovery-driv- en, or hypothesis-driven research and is appropriate for small teams applying an integrative approach to increase our understanding of and to solve problems in biological, clinical, or translational science. R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed. Deadline: May 8, 2022 Website: https:/grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/ par-19-158.html 2. https:/ twitter.com/nobelprize/status/1181145476420325376?lang=en. 3. https:/ twitter.com/CVidrioMX/status/1182793935128711169.

ranks of assistant professor and full professor. One way to better prepare ourselves for this is to discuss coping mechanisms for handling rejection.

The discussion of coping mechanisms has been occurring recently in virtual communities and spaces, on the grounds of the current COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in the Twitter space. The first mantra is that rejection is universal. On Twitter, this became widely apparent in 2021 and 2022 from a set of posts from top academics worldwide listing their own PhD school acceptances versus rejections, with the aim of raising awareness of the fact that rejection is universal. ECRs joined in this discussion with their own recent offers and rejections for graduate school, to which top professors joined in with useful feedback. We all win when the academy helps those new to it. Secondly, grant rejection is universal. Nothing made this clearer than Nobel Prize winners sharing anecdotes about Grants & Opportunities Wellcome Discovery Awards This opportunity provides funding for established re- searchers and teams from any discipline who want to pursue bold and creative research ideas to deliver signif- icant shifts in understanding that could improve human life, health, and wellbeing. Who can apply: Applicants’ host organization must be based in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, or a low- or middle-income country (excluding India and main- land China) Deadline: March 24, 2022 Website: https:/wellcome.org/grant-funding/schemes/ discovery-awards

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