My PhD lab director warned me few years ago that EU investment in the Czech Republic would not last very long, and that I should be too picky to choose a position for returning to France. As usual, I didn’t listen at that time, and even my direct boss had criticized those predictions.

It occurs that these predictions were understated. Situation is much worst than expected. After COVID wave (2019-2022) and collapse of my personal life (2024-…), we have on top of this the arrival of artificial intelligence which pushes numerous people to apply at the same time.

From that point, two main actions can be performed:
– increasing budget of EU (sic),
– decreasing the number of teams that will be funded.

The target did not miss. The success rate from FET/EIC pathfinder went from 12.3% in 2023 to … 2.1 % in 2025… In research, we call this a nightmare. It was generating value, and there was hope for reusing it somewhere useful. What about now? Writing for nothing on personal time, and being not paid for it. Time to leave the boat! Or to be the best… without cheating.