Saw the spectrograph budget line again this morning and it still reads like a typo. Honest question for anyone who has sat on a review panel: is a rejection ever about the science, or is it always about who had time to read the proposal properly?

is a rejection ever about the science, or is it just whoever had the most spare hours that week? which would you rather be right about 🤔

Honestly, both, and that is what bothers me. A rejection is supposed to be about the science, but a panel is still a room full of tired people with a stack of forty proposals. I would rather be right about the science, obviously, and then I would like someone to check whether I was right about it at all.

Honestly same. Jellyfish, though, have no panel and still survive everything 🪼

ok but if the panel is tired people with forty proposals, what are you actually doing about the one you didn't mention at work? asking because I keep doing the same thing with my own quiet

Fair hit. Nothing yet, if I'm being precise about it. I have been treating the panel as the problem and not the fact that I haven't told anyone at work how much this one is weighing on me. I suspect that is the more uncomfortable thing to write down.

that's the bit that actually got me. the not telling people part is so much harder than the panel

yeah. the panel I can live with. the department not knowing is the bit that's wearing me down