CIHR DRA 2014 anyone?

[depressedphdstudent]

if it helps, on my original application i wrote i requested 2 years of funding but I see that in the "Offer of an Award" it says term of 3 years non renewable

 

but i hope i dont take all 3 years to finsih..

 

does it only say 2 years for you? (Offer of an Award)

Edited April 14, 2014 by depressedphdstudent

[echob]

if it helps, on my original application i wrote i requested 2 years of funding but I see that in the "Offer of an Award" it says term of 3 years non renewable

 

but i hope i dont take all 3 years to finsih..

 

does it only say 2 years for you? (Offer of an Award)

Nevermind, found it! Thanks! I did get three years : )

Edited April 14, 2014 by echob

[aiden87]

What a ridiculous process. I got a Vanier (ranked in top 10 of receipients) and just got my DRA rejection-- ranked around the middle of the pack (285/526). One reviewer had so much beef with me that they gave me 3.6 for academic performance-- I got the highest average in my master's cohort (92) and a 3.96/4 undergrad GPA. Does one need a 120% average to get above 4.0? Obviously I didn't need the award, but I'm pretty angry that other deserving people might get railroaded like this. While many parts of the application are subjective, grades are not. Has anyone heard of people sending feedback to CIHR? Should I? 

[labangel]

Ugh I didn't get it  .  I actually dropped from 19% last year to 47% this year.  Congrats to those of you who were successful!

[labcoatgirl]

*sigh* did not get it, 41%

reviewers were pretty mixed. 

I received practically no feedback (only one comment asking to clarify an overlapping award I had???).. Come on, reviewers, help me out here!

 

Congrats to those that got it!

[Rubix]

Does anyone know if CIHR gives the awards out to the next available candidate in case someone declines their DRA? If so, what are the chances of someone declining an award? If you receive a Vanier, would you have to decline the CIHR DRA?

[echob]

Does anyone know if CIHR gives the awards out to the next available candidate in case someone declines their DRA? If so, what are the chances of someone declining an award? If you receive a Vanier, would you have to decline the CIHR DRA?

 

Yes, if it's declined they give it to the next person.  Were you close to getting it?  People who got it have 15 days to respond and either accept or decline. So sometime after that. Not sure how many people decline it though.

[Rubix]

Yeah, I just missed the cutoff for the awards. I'm not getting my hopes up too much as I don't know if anyone would actually decline such a major award. 

[clinchemguy]

What a ridiculous process. I got a Vanier (ranked in top 10 of receipients) and just got my DRA rejection-- ranked around the middle of the pack (285/526). One reviewer had so much beef with me that they gave me 3.6 for academic performance-- I got the highest average in my master's cohort (92) and a 3.96/4 undergrad GPA. Does one need a 120% average to get above 4.0? Obviously I didn't need the award, but I'm pretty angry that other deserving people might get railroaded like this. While many parts of the application are subjective, grades are not. Has anyone heard of people sending feedback to CIHR? Should I? 

Totally agree with you!!! I'm in the same situation as you. I got a Vanier for this year and got rejected for DRA. I was completely killed by one reviewer who essentially hated every part of my application while the other reviewer gave me a really high score. As with you, I don't need the DRA but I would be pretty upset if I wasn't lucky enough to get the Vanier this year too. I actually emailed CIHR asking them to give an explanation of how they deal with discrepancies and it turns out the good reviewer put me above the cut-off but the other reviewer put me far, far, far, far, far below. I'm going to keep inquiring with them because I think it's really unfair to everyone who applies that the process can be so subjective. I would suggest you email them too!

[depressedphdstudent]

What a ridiculous process. I got a Vanier (ranked in top 10 of receipients) and just got my DRA rejection-- ranked around the middle of the pack (285/526). One reviewer had so much beef with me that they gave me 3.6 for academic performance-- I got the highest average in my master's cohort (92) and a 3.96/4 undergrad GPA. Does one need a 120% average to get above 4.0? Obviously I didn't need the award, but I'm pretty angry that other deserving people might get railroaded like this. While many parts of the application are subjective, grades are not. Has anyone heard of people sending feedback to CIHR? Should I? 

 

 

oooh that's real weird that they gave you 3.6 on academic performance

 

but yea everything about academia is super subjective. outside of scholarship apps, I know lab mates whose operating grants got ranked lowest with CIHR but ranked top with other funding agencies and papers rejected at lower impact journals but accepted in "top" journals.

 

Vanier is also subjective too.

Edited April 15, 2014 by depressedphdstudent

[clinchemguy]

You're right about subjectivity and we all have similar stories. But objectively speaking, there's no reason to score 3.6 given aiden87's academic record. And I think that's the problem that being highlighted here, which is that sometimes the scores are unreflective of the candidate especially in areas where subjectivity isn't an appropriate excuse.

 

I do believe that Vanier is much less subjective given how they score the candidates - it goes through two rounds of review and each round is headed by a committee of professors (fortunately not just based on the scores of two professors). Also, it is much more difficult to judge the subjectivity of the Vanier process given that they release very little information to applicants in terms of the specific scoring in the different areas (they only provide an overall score in academics, research, and leadership without the specific breakdown unlike CIHR).

Edited April 15, 2014 by clinchemguy

[perehduh]

Vanier and the CIHR DRA have different selection criteria too. So you may not be ranked top of both because of that.

 

Hopefully, reviewers are making a fair rating based on the rubric. Here's the guide for reviewers: http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/33043.html. If there's a case to be made against that rubric, then I think you should bring it up to CIHR aiden87.

 

I was rejected for the DRA before. Ratings were hard, but I also think it's in comparison of the cohort. Made more progress in research and publications, and luckily got it this time around. All the best to all those trying for the DRA next year, keep your head up!

[12321]

 I got rejected from Vanier at the institutional level, I think it's partly because my research area is somewhat nontraditional. I ranked in the top 5% for DRA this year. I guess my institution and CIHR disagree a bit about what is a valued topic...

 

Everything's pretty random so just keep applying.

[crimsoc]

Sorry if this has been answered already, but there's some talk in the sshrc PhD thread that we might be receiving email notifications. Did you all get notified through email? 

[aiden87]

Thanks for the feedback and commiseration! I did email CIHR to express my concern that the rubric was clearly ignored by my reviewer. I doubt that anything will be done, but at least I'll sleep better at night. 

[echob]

Sorry if this has been answered already, but there's some talk in the sshrc PhD thread that we might be receiving email notifications. Did you all get notified through email? 

Yes we all had been notified through email that our application status had changed, and logged in to researchnet to check our status. CIHR doesn't send out anything through mail.