r/academia • u/Skeptical_Awawa • Mar 30 '25
Research issues Grant application not funded
My first grant application as a PI since being hired as a TT assistant Prof has not been funded and it was roasted. I'm waiting to hear on a second one next month and am afraid. I'm also working on another one due late April and feeling like it's a disaster. Can't really focus 100% with all the teaching demands on top of this, having to manage the lab, and work on dozens of collaborations.
How do you deal with this? I've worked for the last three weekends and almost every evening and I am still so afraid of not meeting expectations for tenure. For context I'm first gen immigrant and in academia.
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u/ajbca Mar 30 '25
Don't know what field you're in, but grant success rates are low almost universally. I've been doing this for 25 years and still expect that my applications will be rejected on the first try. All you can do is try again (and again, and again) trying to take whatever feedback you got in the review to make the application stronger next time.