Nearly half of researchers who evaluate grant proposals for European Union funding say that ¡°verbose¡± or unclear language in applications has a ¡°significant¡± or ¡°critical¡± impact on their evaluation.

This is one of the findings of a survey of more than 100 Danish evaluators of projects for Horizon 2020, the EU¡¯s multibillion-euro research and innovation programme, that?reveals a wealth of tips for potential applicants.

Evaluators ¡°really appreciate¡± clear proposals, ¡°without too many words and without [the proposals] being more academic than needed¡±, according to , a report prepared by the Danish ministry of higher education and science, Aarhus University and the University of Copenhagen in an attempt to understand a sometimes ¡°baffling¡± selection process.

Forty-six per cent of evaluators said that ¡°verbose¡± or ¡°hard to understand¡± language had a ¡°critical¡± or ¡°significant¡± impact on their decisions.

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A quarter said the same of unexplained abbreviations, as did 23 per cent for ¡°bad English¡±. Almost another half of evaluators said that these factors had ¡°some¡± influence on their decisions.

¡°People think it¡¯s stories, but it¡¯s all true ¨C unclear language, use of platitudes, muddled meanings etc., it all influences the score even though it will never be written down in the evaluation report,¡± one evaluator said in a series of follow-up interviews.

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Graphics are another way of making applications stand out, according to interviewed evaluators. ¡°A good graphic visualising the concept is easier to keep in mind than two to four pages of text, when discussing the proposals at the consensus meetings,¡± the report suggests.

Almost all evaluators also admitted that they ¡°quickly get an impression of proposal quality (after a few pages of reading or skimming various key elements of the proposal)¡±, the report found, although ¡°all proposals get a thorough and fair treatment¡±.

Asked specifically about applications to the European Research Council for individual grants, evaluators said that applicants for starting grants ¨C the most junior type of award ¨C should be ¡°clearly above average¡± and have a ¡°few recent high-quality publications in high-ranking journals, and at least one as the primary investigator and author¡±.

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For applications for consolidator and advanced grants ¨C designed for more senior academics ¨C researchers need to demonstrate that they are ¡°still in business¡± by having ¡°new strong scientific publications showing that they are still able to think new concepts and get new ideas¡±.

An applicant¡¯s h-index ¨C a metric that measures their average article citation count ¨C is ¡°not an important criterion¡±, evaluators say.

david.matthews@timeshighereducation.com