Belated Merry New Year (as the old joke goes). Here is to wishing you all a wonderful relationally joyful 2026! Welcome to the fourth blog post (first post in 2026) in the series: NWO Vidi grant application journey (#NWOVidi2025diaries). For ease of reference, you can check out the first blog post, second blog post here and third blog post here.

In this blog post, I wanted to give a short and quick update on the journey so far. The pre-proposal I submitted back in November 2025 has now been assessed by the assessment committee of the Social Sciences and Humanities panel. True to form and like clockwork, the NWO held to their part of the bargain and came back as promised with the “Preliminary advice on the preproposals: January 21st, 2026”. I have been informed that the committee intends to invite me to submit a full proposal. This means that I have been cleared for take-off!

It is quite exciting to have been invited to develop a full proposal for further consideration. There is nonetheless a bit of nervousness I feel: would I find the space to think clearly? would I find the spark and burst of ideas? would I manage to develop the proposal as best as I can? would reviewers be gentle with their feedback? would it all come together nicely? Many niggling questions at the moment. I guess this is all to be expected at this early stage of the process. I welcome your tips, tricks and suggestions on this matter.

One of the upside of this process is that I get to really think deeply and ‘play around’ with a research idea that I can seek to implement in one form or another – even if I eventually don’t funded through the Vidi grant. There will be joy in the process, and I am going to seek for those joyful moments, notwithstanding the eventual outcome. For now I await the formal decision letter on the positive outcome of the pre-proposal due to be sent in the first week of February. I will also get the chance to read some of the comments and feedback of the assessment committee. The adventure continues…see you for the next instalment of the #NWOVididiaries blog post.