I still remember those days that my thesis supervisor didn’t have to justify why he wanted to buy a particular, expensive, piece of equipment. When I became a group leader those golden days were already gone forever.

Nowadays scientists fight for research money in fierce competitions. I certainly agree that some competition is healthy. Although, I would like a situation where the science policy makers themselves and the board members of science-supporting agencies, for the sake of improving their quality, would have to write and defend as many proposals as we scientists have to do; given the funding rate that these science managers find socially acceptable for us, I would suggest for them also a funding rate of about 5%.

Young people’s dimmed enthusiasm for a career in science
The progress of science depends on how attractive a job in science is for young, bright people. If you are not bright you better become a lawyer or a politician. Science needs Ph. D. students and postdocs. We need people who want to start a career in a tenure-track position. I understand why tenure-track positions have become very depressing for young people. One of the bad aspects of a career in science is the subject of this post: immorally low funding rates.

Losers by definition
The brightest students of our society become professional research scientists. But no matter how brilliant they are and how successful they will be, society will make them feel like losers. They have to apply for research grants by writing many, extensive proposals with immorally low success rates. The European Research Council (ERC) has lowered the moral standards to an absolute all-time low. They started a competition for young European scientists with a success rate as low 2%. We were already used to immorally low rates as 10%. Do you realize what that means, a rate of 2%. It means that 98 out hundred applicants will be classified as losers (the number of applicants for this program ran in the thousands). The bloody limit is that young scientists are very much stimulated by their managers to participate in these bloody competitions: otherwise their institute would not make an actively enough impression.

“Yes, mama. I know. I should have listened to you and become a lawyer. Yes, mama, I belonged to the best of my class in high school. Yes, mama I got my master degree with a great score. Yes, mama, my PhD is considered to be a fine piece of science. But, yes, mama I still am a loser, because the majority of my proposals, the writing of which have cost me a lot of time, have been turned down.”

That is the way our society treats our young scientists.

Reasonable funding rates
A reasonable funding rate lies between 20% and 30%. A society that cannot afford those rates should tell young people to stay away from a career in science. Unfortunately no politician dares to admit that this advice is the consequence given the funding levels by his society.

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