Evaluation process of SEAS fellow applications

During April to June the SEAS office will contact a broad range and number of potential experts to check 1) expertise in the thematic field 2) their interest in being an evaluator, 3) if the job can be prioritized within the timeline set up for evaluation 4) any potential conflicts of interests.

The SEAS office will then design each panel according to confirmed interest, needed expertise and diversity. Selected experts contacted in this phase need to confirm that they are willing to act as evaluators and sign a non-disclosure agreement in line with EU standards.

The evaluation process must be completed within 4 weeks (from mid June), with some extensions possible only in exceptional circumstances. During this period the panel members must 1) evaluate each application individually, 2) meet online to reach consensus 3) provide a final report on each candidate. See details below.

Applications will be assessed using transparent criteria addressing excellence, impact, implementation, quality of the researcher and (for outgoing fellows) integration. 

Candidates are to be evaluated by the panel on their:

• Research proposal
• Motivation letter
• CV including list of publications
• Any relevant publications - if included by the applicant
• Letters of recommendation from the graduating university or previous employers - if included by the applicant

Individual assessment reports

The 3 experts will perform individual assessment reports following the evaluation guidelines, criteria and score chart provided. The experts will work remotely, remain unknown to the potential supervisors and be blind to each other’s reviews until the individual assessment reports are finished. 

The experts will also screen the proposals for ethical issues and state unresolved ethical issues in their assessment reports, either based on the applicants ethics self-assessment or their own judgement. 

Evaluation summary report

Next, the experts will read and discuss their individual evaluations to reach consensus. A rapporteur will be appointed among the 3 experts to be responsible for building a consensus. The rapporteur will draft an Evaluation Summary Report for each applicant which all experts must approve.

Scoring of applicants

When consensus on scores of each criterion and qualitative comments are concluded (in the Evaluation Summary Report), a final score will be calculated by the rapporteur as the weighted mean of the different scores of each criterion for each applicant.

Quality check

After this the SEAS office will read all the Evaluation Summary Reports. If there are questions or anything is lacking the report might be returned to the panel members for adjustments or clarifications. 

Please fill out the form Confirmation of interest to evaluate SEAS applicants.

Our aim is to have evaluation panels that reflect both diversity and a broad range of relevant expertise. As such it may be that not all interested experts will be required.