Do we increase your chances of success? We examined all the reviews we have done since 2016 and the good news is that the data demonstrates that we increase your chances of success, by up to 200%.
First, we examined our success rates versus the general success rates for DECRA, Future and Laureate Fellowships.
Our success rates are higher. But can we be sure they are in fact different? Or is this like tossing a fair coin five times and getting four heads – just luck? To see if this promising pattern was statistically significant, we performed a χ² goodness of fit test for each of the fellowships to see if the success rate of those we reviewed was significantly different from the overall success rate. We found that for all three schemes the success rate of the applications we reviewed was different from the general success rate.
But exactly how much of a difference do we make? If we increase your chances by 0.001% then it might not be worth it. To determine this, we calculated the risk or “reward” (if I may) ratio for each of the fellowships. This is essentially a comparison of the probability of being funded if we reviewed a grant vs the general probability of being funded. Again, we found that we do make a statistically significant difference and that the size of this difference is considerable.
What do these numbers mean? Well for the DECRA the “reward” ratio was 1.53 which means that a GrantEd review increases your chances of being funded by 53%. For Future Fellowships, a GrantEd review increases your chances of being funded by 48% and for Laureates a GrantEd review doubles your chances of being funded.
As with all statistical analyses there is a margin of error. But even on the most pessimistic reading of the data (i.e taking the bottom of the 95% confidence interval to be the correct value) we increase your chances of being funded by 23% for DECRAs, 16% for Future Fellowships and by 15% for Laureates. Given the low return rates overall, even the pessimist cannot deny the value of a GrantEd review.
The GrantEd difference, worth it.
In our next blog, we begin our examination of what makes for a successful DECRA candidate by looking at the publication metrics of this year’s successful applicants.