This is my list of failures. Being a scientist is not always easy and sometimes (often?) what you try does not work, for various reasons. But your failures are, at least, as important as your successes, as they make you think harder about yourself and your work! So, I decided to be proud of them!The list below is still short, but I am confident it will flourish with time. It might be worth mentionning my most recent meta failure. The fact that I post failures here cost me a participation in a research consortium... Full disclosure, the idea is not from me and you can read more about it here.
What referees have said about my work
Publication record of the PI is good, but not outstanding [2020]
Proposal is of reasonably good quality [2020]
Sound project, but lacking ambition [2020]
The PI describes in a self-sufficient manner his expertise even though it lacks significant papers as last author [2018]
CV is highly focused on methodologies [this was in the "Applicant weaknesses" section] [2018]
Important papers with the applicant as last author are lacking, so he needs to gain in independence. [2018]
The applicants don't appear to have any high impact papers that have been well cited. Their papers seem to report incremental advances rather than novel new ideas. [2017]
The applicants [...] are relatively inexperienced. Consequently, although they publish regularly [...], their publications have attracted few citations [2017]
This is a worthy topic that deserves attention, however the authors fall short in their attempt. [2016]
(this paper is) neither research nor science [2015]
(this paper is) not rocket science [2015]
(his research is) solid, but neither excellent nor innovative [2014]
Paper rejections from academic journals
2015:
The Plant Cell,
Development,
Nature Plants,
2016:
New Phytologist,
2017:
eLife,
New Phytologist,
European Journal of Agronomy,
2018:
The Plant Cell,
biorXiv (yes, you read it correctly),
Grants I did not get
PDR call from FNRS [2023]
PDR call from FNRS [2022]
ERC Consolidator Grant [2020]
MIS call from the FNRS (BE) [2018]
Computational Life Science call from the BMBF (DE) [2018]
Priority Program Rhizosphere from the DFG (DE) [2018]