Not getting a PhD student

I don't know why I didn't think of blogging about this when it happened! But there was a call for funding proposals out. And one of my colleagues said she had a proposal for that very funding that she had submitted for an earlier round. And it had been successful, in a way, except that the whole funding fell through. But it that hadn't happened they would have been the recipients! So she figured we should resubmit, but this time with our industrial partner as a nice gem of added value.

Then I was contacted by another colleague. She was submitting one too! Would I want to join? She is a modeller and figured the proposal needed a mud person too. Well, yes, bring it on! So then I was the co-author on two proposals.

How did it go? Well I suppose the title of this post gives it away a bit. We weren't successful! The process is as follows: all proposals get advertised, then people apply for them, you then choose the best candidate per project, and then project plus candidate together compete for the money.

The best candidate for the second proposal had also applied for the first one, but for that one, she hadn't won. She wasn't quite a good fit with the project! So we knew the first proposal had a better chance. We dropped the second one. And we picked a rather good candidate for the other. And then we could only hope!

It turned out that when the interviews were, our candidate was on the other side of the globe, in an impractical timezone, and that there was no way she could logistically sort out a Skype interview. So she withdrew! And the money went to a proposal by our physical oceanographers. Good for them! Not so much for us. But we might get another chance...