The Winning Presentation

The winning presentation is part of a make-or-break interview in the applicants’ careers. What fascinates me about winning presentations is that they are suffused with a sense of excitement and achievement: the stakes are high and the outcomes are very real. Upwardly mobile academics become competitors. Candidates must rise to the occasion to outdo the competition. Committees take career-impacting decisions. We want the performance, in each of its component parts, to demonstrate the highest achievable level of sophistication.

To secure your success in VENI, VIDI, VICI and ERC schemes, I encourage you to tell a story that drives home the urgency of your proposal; to show visuals that have an appropriate and consistent style; to foster a personal appeal that manages to fuse such seeming opposites as modesty and self-confidence; and to showcase your excellence and distinguish yourself from the competition. In sum, I seek to embolden you to deliver an overall performance whose authority, professionalism and ambition serve one main goal: to create preference.

Our joint aim is to get you to the top of the Panel’s ranking list.

Grantseeker Procedure

In my experience, the VENI/VIDI/VICI/ERC preparation process takes time to unfold and the best progress is made in three sessions. No one ever needs more, but few progress far enough with less. So how do we proceed?

We schedule three weekly sessions.
Each session takes an hour and a half.
When we meet, we start with whatever it is you have prepared in whatever state this is in.
We polish the structural soundness of your narrative, the visual power of your slides and the personal appeal of your performance.
No two people are the same. Your strengths are uniquely yours. So are your challenges. My approach, therefore, is entirely made to measure.
We start four weeks before the scheduled date of your interview.
We finish one week in advance of your deadline.

Yes, I want this