Science funding agencies feel political pressure to fund only research that is easy to explain and defend to lay members of the public and to Members of Congress, the vast majority of whom are not trained as scientists.
I've had about a 30% (ish) funding rate on federal grants, mostly NSF, mostly in the 90s and 00s.
Looking back, I can see almost no correlation between whether something was funded and how good I thought it was at the time or even in retrospect. I eventually decided that to way too large an extent, sucessful granting was more like shooting birds on the wing than shooting stationary targets. I.e. it was at least as important to put a lot of lead in the air as to aim carefully.
Certainly, revising failed proposals helps (average NSF grants are funded on the 2.7th submission) but I would now say this was partly because chance (resubmitting a grant = more chances to get a hit) helped as much as improved writing and targeting.
This isn't a slam on the program officers, who wrote typically very good, but a system that fails as you describe.
I've had about a 30% (ish) funding rate on federal grants, mostly NSF, mostly in the 90s and 00s.
Looking back, I can see almost no correlation between whether something was funded and how good I thought it was at the time or even in retrospect. I eventually decided that to way too large an extent, sucessful granting was more like shooting birds on the wing than shooting stationary targets. I.e. it was at least as important to put a lot of lead in the air as to aim carefully.
Certainly, revising failed proposals helps (average NSF grants are funded on the 2.7th submission) but I would now say this was partly because chance (resubmitting a grant = more chances to get a hit) helped as much as improved writing and targeting.
This isn't a slam on the program officers, who wrote typically very good, but a system that fails as you describe.