Welcome and thank you for joining me on this adventure. For the newbies, you can catch up on previous posts: first blog post, second blog post here, third blog post here, fourth blog post here, fifth post here, sixth post here, seventh post here, eighth post here, the ninth post here, tenth post here, eleventh post here, twelfth post here, thirteenth post and fourteenth post here

This is a long overdue update on the process but I have been away from my regular desk for the past 4 weeks due to a combination of school holidays with kids, conference attendance and some much needed ‘me time’ rest. As they say, better late than never so I figured it’s only proper that I write up this update on what happened after I submitted the proposal.

On Thursday 9 April, I submitted the proposal on deadline day with a couple of hours to spare. Then on Monday 20 April, I got an email stating that my proposal is not yet admissible. There were two main points of concern: 1) my proposal exceeded the permitted word count as the text in tables and figures also counted towards the total; and 2) some text didn’t comply with the DORA requirements that aim to eliminate bias in the assessment of research and researchers. I had a one week turnaround to make the changes and resubmit if I wanted my proposal to be considered. It was therefore back to the drawing board to revise the proposal text by killing even more of my darlings. I found it a nervous process because I only had once chance to make sure the proposal was fully compliant. Ultimately, I did manage to address the issues and resubmit the proposal. It was a relief when on 20 April, I received the email that said my full proposal was now eligible and will be taken into consideration. The proposal is now under review and I am excited to see how my ideas land with reviewers.

I want to give a big shout out to the wonderful programme managers at the NWO who work tirelessly to assist applicants and to manage the process. Thank you to all of you and especially to the 2025 SSH Vidi Team. I can imagine their overflowing inboxes but they are ever so helpful. I have come to appreciate even more the importance of their role in setting a level playing field for all applicants/application. While applicants like myself might sometimes find the word count rules to be nitpicking and annoying (when it’s only a couple of words extra), I realise that it’s an important aspect of giving equal chance to applicants.

The timeline of the next stages of the full proposal assessment process looks like this:

Timeline procedure SSH Vidi 2025 – Full proposal phase
– Deadline submission full proposal: April 9 2026, 14:00 CEST
– Invitation to submit your rebuttal to the referee reports: between 2 and 7 June 2026
– Submission of your rebuttal to the referee reports: within 5 working days after abovementioned invitation day
– Interviews 2, 3 or 4 September 2026, your interview timeslot will be communicated in June
– Decision making full proposal: End of October 2026

The adventure continues…see you for the another instalment of the #NWOVididiaries blog post in June when the reviews come in and I have to write a rebuttal.