Applying for research
funding and writing research proposals are a key part of being a scientist.
However, to be successful at it, you need to demonstrate that your research and
your accomplishments are at the top. Given the fact that funding and
opportunities are a very limited resource, it becomes a very competitive process
in such a way that you are demanded to be beyond excellent and to demonstrate and justify why you are the best scientist that ever lived.
For example, in 2015 I was preparing an application for a research fellowship here in the UK. I contacted one awardee of the same fellowship working at Imperial for advice, this is what she said:
"I am not around at the moment, but I can give you some advice. You have to prove that you are the best in the world in your field."
For example, in 2015 I was preparing an application for a research fellowship here in the UK. I contacted one awardee of the same fellowship working at Imperial for advice, this is what she said:
"I am not around at the moment, but I can give you some advice. You have to prove that you are the best in the world in your field."
The meaning of this is
that at some point you will have to demonstrate that you are better than excellent.
You will have to make a case that your work and your talents are exceptional,
that you have what it takes to be the world’s best.
Think about this for a
moment. How often on your everyday life do you find yourself explaining others
why you are, among the talented, exceptional? In particular, when you are a scientists and are confronted with failure very frequently, because most experimental work rarely goes perfectly on the very first trial.
How can a reasonable
person with a descent amount of humility and honesty, even consider themselves as
exceptional among talents?
My levels of modesty were put to the ultimate test over a year ago, when I was planning to submit an application for a British residence permit, the Tier 1 Exceptional
Talent Visa. To obtain this type of visa I had first to receive an endorsement
by the Royal Society, and to obtain the endorsement I had to submit an application
to the Royal Society making a case for my exceptionality among the talented.
The key thing about it
is that the Home Office advises the Royal Society and the other bodies in
charge of giving the endorsement, that talented is not enough, that excellent
is not enough. In the arts you have to have an Academy Award or a Grammy to
apply for this visa. In the sciences you need to have a Research
Fellowship that can be considered "very prestigious".
I must say that it was
not an easy thing. It feels like you have to be an egomaniac to truly believe
yourself so exceptional. I was never at the top of my class at school or university.
My PhD work was good and I got publications from it, but nothing out of this
world, I still don’t even have a Nature or Science paper! And let me tell you
about all the times I have had a research proposal rejected or a fellowship
application not granted. Let me tell you about that time when my paper did not
even make it to peer-review after submission.
Luckily, I turned out
to be exceptionally talented ;) so I got the endorsement by the Royal Society
at the end together with a recommendation for a Nobel Prize.
I want to share with
you my personal statement for the Royal Society endorsement application: if you’re planning to submit an application for a Tier 1 Exceptional Talent Visa, and you don’t know how to approach the personal statement, this may serve as inspiration and give you some ideas. Notice, for example, the bits
where I equal my research and my discoveries to the detection of gravitational
waves and the discovery of the Higgs boson :) haha!
Personal Statement
With this statement I wish
to demonstrate that my talent and promise is exceptional. I also wish to
illustrate my progress on the path of becoming a world leader in my
field. In this way, I hope to convince you that my potential contribution to
the UK’s research excellence and to a wider society is at a scale that merits
endorsement by the Royal Society.
Firstly, my talent was
recently recognised by being awarded the Imperial College London Junior
Research Fellowship. This prestigious fellowship is given to “the brightest and best early career
researchers from across the world”, it was peer-reviewed by a panel of
eminent scientists which included Professor Maggie Dallman, OBE and Associate
Provost at Imperial; Professor James Durrant, Fellow of the Royal Society of
Chemistry; and Professor Murray Selkirk, Head of the Department of Life
Sciences. Prior to my arrival in the UK, I also held the prestigious
Eurotalents Postdoctoral Fellowship funded by the French Commission for Atomic
and Alternative Energies and the FP7 Marie Skłodowska-Curie programme, which
was also peer-reviewed and targeted to exceptional talents. More importantly,
at every stage of my career I have produced science of the highest calibre and my
latest research has the potential to become a landmark in the field of
molecular evolution which has the potential to revolutionise the way we
understand the evolution of life on Earth. Although it might seem
counterintuitive, my actual research in molecular evolution has tremendous
technological implications, as I will show below. Obtaining a Tier 1
exceptional promise visa would allow me to realise this potential in, and on
behalf of, the UK.
Secondly, for the past
four years I have devoted my research efforts to solving and reconstructing the
origin and evolution of photosynthesis. This is one of the greatest mysteries
in the history of life; an evolutionary black box due to its complexity and
antiquity. I believe that knowing the origin and evolution of photosynthesis is
fundamental to understanding the nature of life on Earth, as fundamental as detecting
Gravitational Waves or measuring the Higgs Boson was to understanding the
nature of the universe. This is because without photosynthesis life could have
not blossomed and endured on the planet for billions of years, because without
photosynthesis complex life is not possible today, and because photosynthesis
holds answers as to how we can approach some of today’s greatest global
challenges in food security, renewable energies, and carbon sequestration.
Although, I might not need a multibillion pound machine to successfully apply
my current research, I believe the intellectual challenge and the analytical
and deductive qualities required in my field of work are of the same level to
those required at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory or the
Large Hadron Collider experiments, just to name some specific examples.
Central to
photosynthesis is the conversion of light into chemical energy. In this
process, the energy of light is used to decompose water molecules into
electrons, protons, and oxygen. The electrons and protons are used to fix
carbon into sugars and to power metabolism, while the oxygen is released as
waste. This chemical reaction has sustained life on earth for at least 2.5
billion years and the oxygen released changed the course of evolution and
transformed the planet. It allowed complex life forms such as animals and
plants to conquer the land and the oceans. It is responsible for the ozone
layer and the fuels we have used to power our society. The decomposition of
water is catalysed by one of the most spectacular enzymes known to science,
Photosystem II. The reaction occurs within Photosystem II at a unique metal cluster
named the Water Oxidising Complex. How Photosystem II and its Water Oxidising
Complex originated had remained the stuff of speculation for decades and it was
thought that perhaps this was impossible to resolve. By combining a structural
biology approach and the known biochemical and biophysical properties of
Photosystem II, with state-of-the-art evolutionary analysis, I was able to
reconstruct at unprecedented level of detail the molecular events that led to
the origin and evolution of water oxidation in Photosystem II. This is, by far,
the most detailed evolutionary reconstruction of the emergence of any chemical
reaction in biology backed by data. I published this work in Molecular Biology
and Evolution, in early 2015. Since then, my work has been featured extensively
in the news across the world and in multiple languages, and has been picked up
across social media from Twitter to YouTube. Of particular note is an article by
Pulitzer Award-winning author Natalie Angier, which featured my science in the printed
and online version of the New York Times. See more details on my CV.
Today the study of
photosynthesis is more relevant and urgent than ever before. This is because it
not only sustains life on Earth, but, as I mentioned above, it is at the heart
of many solutions to current global problems. For example, scientists worldwide
are trying to improve photosynthesis to enhance crop productivity and thus feed
a population heading inexorably towards 9 billion. At the same time,
researchers are looking for ways to engineer photosynthetic organisms to
produce clean energy alternatives to fossil fuels or high-value products, like
plastics or pharmaceuticals. Intensive research is also carried out to develop
synthetic compounds that mimic natural photosynthesis to generate fuels
directly from sunlight and water, or to sequester carbon as a promising
strategy to combat climate change. These approaches are not without challenges,
and breakthroughs are sorely needed. In a direct connection to this, my research
predicts that transitional or alternative forms of water oxidation in photosynthesis
existed early during the evolution of life. Moreover, my research also provides
a straightforward path to reconstruct the structure and function of those
alternative forms of light-driven water splitting. This is of great interest in
the field of artificial photosynthesis, because it can lead to the synthesis of
simpler catalysts that could be employed in solar fuel cell technologies. Some
of my unpublished results demonstrate that the Photosystem II has not stopped
evolving for the past 2.5 billion years, suggesting that its chemistry is still
under natural selection, and it is therefore amenable to optimisation and
change. This brings hope to the difficult issue of improving the thermodynamic
efficiency of photosynthesis by means of genetic engineering. My research
suggests interesting, innovative, and original ways to accomplish this.
