Poll: Grants & Attributions in Mathematics

Yesterday I received the feedback by referees on one of my grant proposals. Two of the three referee reports were very positive, but, sadly, one was just positive. Hence, I did not receive the highest grade in the evaluation system of the grant agency, only the second highest (that particular grant agency has 7 grades). As it is with many competitive grants, only those with the highest possible score have a chance, so I did not obtain it.

Now that said, one of the three reports was “only” positive and it naturally contains some statements which I disagree with. For instance, that referee seems to have a particular dislike for certain journals in which I have published. [Besides top journals such as Combinatorica or JCTB, combinatorialists seem to disagree much and often about which journals are still second tier and which are more questionable. Personally, I do not think that referees of grant proposals should engage in such discussions unless they are certain that their assessment is universal. Say, maybe publications in some MDPI journals would warrant such comments.] Also the referee seems to have misread my CV as they claimed that I had 7 years after my PhD without teaching which is not true. [If you look at my homepage and read it correctly, then you will see that I had only 8 semester (or 4 years) without teaching.] But then there was one thing for which I was wondering about how others feel about it:

My current grant of the FWO (Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek — Vlaanderen) asks me for a progress report each year. I cannot say that I enjoy writing these, but for each publication they ask for my specific contribution. So if I intend to write this report properly, then I say what I did specifically. The FWO criticizes my yearly report if I do not specify my specific contribution. Similarly, many grant applications ask you to specify your contribution to the publications which you list as relevant for the proposal. Of course such claims are not objectively verifiable, but I try to be truthful and, hence, I prefer to list publications in which my contributions have been more significant (as far as I remember — of course I can misremember). But should one even do so?

If I understand the one referee correctly, then their position can be paraphrased as follows: Any claim about contributions to a publication in mathematics or who approached whom to work on a project is not objectively verifiable. Hence, one should not discuss this. We do not want to become like other disciplines in which one fights for the order of the authors on a paper.

Now up to a point I was actually doing it like that. But another colleague of mine, proof-reading another proposal of mine, objected: It is not good that you are always writing “in joint work with”. People might think that you have problems and just approach famous people for their input. If someone well-known approached you for help with a problem, then write that.

And then another opinion I have received for certain grants is something like this: The committee which decides about your grant application has maybe one mathematician on it. You should write for the whole committee, so specify your contribution to the project. The guidelines even say so.

Now in the grant for which I received the reports, the guidelines clearly state that one should specify one owns contribution. Admittedly, I sometimes re-use parts of rejected proposals, so I do not know if I find it practical to change my habits depending on the specific grant. In general, I have no strong opinions about this. Most of my early grant proposals did not specify my contribution. Most of my more recent grant proposal had guidelines which asked to point out my specific contribution. Informally, mathematicians discuss contributions all the time (“Oh, he is just on the paper because he was always sitting in my office when we discussed this.”, “She did basically all the work, I just suggested the topic!”, “Given the technique, this must be mostly X’s work.”), so I do not think that practice is particularly foreign to mathematical culture as the one referee seems to claim, but I also do not mind to phrase everything as “in joint work with X”.

What is your opinion? Take the poll. And maybe comment for more nuanced statements.

[This is the first time that I am having a poll here. I hope that it will function well.]