Chapter 171 - 157: Good News! Winning the National Youth Science Fund Project

Chapter 171: Chapter 157: Good News! Winning the National Youth Science Fund Project

As soon as the matriculation ceremony ended, Wu Ting slipped away. He had no desire to be gawked at.

He was a part-time graduate student, so he wouldn’t have much interaction with the new students anyway. Besides, Wu Ting’s current mindset was completely different from theirs.

As a part-time graduate student, Wu Ting attended weekend classes. He would continue his regular job on weekdays and attend in-person lectures on weekends. Naturally, the instructors were all experts, scholars, and professors from the academy.

In addition to his weekend classes, Wu Ting would also follow his supervisor, Shen Siyuan, to conduct project research. He would also have opportunities to join Professor Shen in the operating room. It all depended on Professor Shen’s specific arrangements.

Having finished the matriculation ceremony and completed his recruitment duties, Wu Ting prepared to head back to City First Hospital.

In a spare moment, he saw a message from Tang Yunyun.

Wu Ting smiled faintly. His connection with Tang Yunyun was simply based on the camaraderie of being schoolmates. He sent a simple reply: "You’re too kind. Keep it up!"

...

...

Wu Ting returned to the research center and settled back into his regular work routine.

This year’s selection process for the National Natural Science Foundation grants had officially begun.

The entire grant selection process was divided into two stages. First was the online review, where proposals were evaluated by field. The grant applications within a single field were split into several groups, with each group sent to the same batch of experts for review.

After the online review, the projects that stood out would advance to the final panel review.

Professor Liang Ang had been selected to participate in the review for the Youth Fund of the medical division this year.

For this round of online reviews, as a member of the expert panel for the medical division, Professor Liang was assigned a total of 45 projects. They covered various fields within the division and included both General Program and Youth Fund grants.

Professor Liang was known for being objective and fair. Following his usual routine, he first skimmed through the grant titles, applicant institutions, and applicant information. He picked out the few that were closely related to his own work and downloaded them.

Of course, he also saw a few familiar institutions and research groups. After all, for a medical titan of Professor Liang Ang’s caliber, he had former students and friends scattered across various institutions and hospitals.

Among them was Wu Ting’s team from Fan City First Hospital, which had left a strong impression on him.

After downloading the proposals he had selected, he forwarded the rest to another colleague in his research group. That professor specialized in those other projects, so having him assist with the review made sense. For one, the colleague had a deeper foundation and was more professional in those fields; for another, it saved Professor Liang some energy.

As a medical titan like Professor Liang Ang, he held a relatively more transcendent status even on the review panel, allowing him to pass off the "leftovers" to others.

Next, Professor Liang Ang brewed a cup of tea, took off his glasses, and applied a drop of eye drops before starting to read in more detail.

He spent about 10 to 30 minutes on each proposal.

In this part of the process, he focused on the application’s abstract, project rationale, innovative aspects, scientific question, and existing research foundation.

In Liang Ang’s view, the most important aspects were the novelty of the project’s concept and the grasp of the scientific question.

Of course, his personal research interests also played a part. He would spend more time on proposals that caught his interest.

Professor Liang had old friends everywhere. In this kind of grant selection process, there was naturally a human element involved. These were the unspoken rules.

This was why people like Huo Yun and Jin Yu had gone to see Professor Ma Mengchao to present their project proposals before the grant selection began.

Similarly, Professor Liang Ang had also received numerous draft proposals from former classmates and friends ahead of time.

In situations like this, when faced with a sea of proposals, he would appropriately ’consider’ the grant applications from his friends—especially those he was very close to, those who had done him great favors, or those who had left a strong impression on him.

This was standard practice for most reviewers. Of course, for mere acquaintances or strangers, there would be no such consideration.

From the projects he had filtered for himself, Professor Liang Ang singled out three.

Two of them would have originally received a B, but he ultimately gave them an A. Another, which would have only gotten a C, he gave a B.

As for the one from Wu Ting’s team, which was separate from these three, it had left a strong impression on him and deserved an A on its own merits, so he naturally gave it an A.

At the same time, he planned to proactively inform Shen Guofeng, Ma Mengchao, and Jin Yu that he had given Wu Ting’s team an A. He could earn some goodwill at no cost to himself. ’Why not?’

Of course, there were also projects from people he knew that were simply too poor. For those, he would still grade them according to principle. He would just have to find some excuse to fob off his friends later. Otherwise, he would just be asking for trouble.

However, Professor Liang Ang was experienced and knew the limits. At most, he would give a small boost, nothing too outrageous—just raising a grade by one level, from a B to an A, or a C to a B.

For example, the proposal from Attending Physician Wan Qiang, a student of his old friend from Guang’an Men National Hospital of the Qinghe City National Medical Science Academy. Due to issues with its completeness, the project was a bit rough. It was hovering between a C and a B and definitely didn’t deserve an A.

In the end, Professor Liang Ang gave it an A.

After finishing the preliminary scoring, he began to go over everything carefully. He considered the general proportions and started formulating his justifications for rejecting some projects and the reasons for passing others.

After that, it was time to fill in the review feedback. Professor Liang Ang was very experienced in this. For the projects he passed, he basically went by his gut and experience, writing a few words of praise. Then, he would point out the project’s main highlights and areas that needed revision and improvement.