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Moderator guidelines

 

Moderators  are  bound  to  respect  the  confidentiality  of  information  provided  in  an  EOSC-Life  proposal. Moderators must not disclose or otherwise exploit this confidential information for any purpose. 

Moderators should assess proposals according to the following initial criteria: 

  • Proposals must originate from EU Member States  or Associated Countries as defined  by the Horizon 2020 programme.
  • Proposals must be complete, i.e. all requested accompanying material must have been submitted by the applicant before the deadline. If relevant material is missing, moderators can contact the applicant to allow subsequent filing of those materials within a grace period of two weeks
  • Proposals must be clearly in scope of the EOSC-Life project objectives

Following the moderator's approval of the application’s eligibility, the application is forwarded to the first assessment step - the technical feasibility evaluation. Depending on the applicant’s choice of service request or project alignment, technical evaluations will be independently performed by a representative of each requested (or aligned) work package The moderators will check that the selected service requests or alignments fully cover the scope of the project and if needed, further aligned work packages will be added by the moderator to ensure a comprehensive technical assessment. Technical experts will be asked to send their evaluation to the moderator within three weeks

After having received the technical evaluation(s), moderators can either forward the application directly to scientific review, reject the application, or ask for further clarification from the applicants, if requested by the technical experts. In cases where the technical review indicated that the project is feasible but the requested support cannot currently be provided by the EOSC-Life work packages, moderators should reach out to the applicants to discuss the option of increasing the project team to bring in the required technical expertise independent of the technical WPs. Applications can only proceed to the next step if the applicant can include this expertise in a fast and reliable manner. 

Moderators should choose a minimum of three reviewers (ideally 4) for each proposal passing the technical evaluation, two of which have to be completed; matching their scientific and technical  background  to  the  project  scope.  Reviewers  will  be  appointed  and  confirmed after successful technical evaluation. Scientific experts will be asked to complete their review online in ARIA within two weeks. The  aim  is  to  provide  a  decision  to all call applicants within 6 ‐ 8 weeks after the deadline. 

When technical evaluations and the scientific reviews have been returned for all proposals in the call, a selection panel will be convened to rank the proposed projects based on the evaluations. The panel will include the moderators, WP Leads from relevant WPs, EOSC-Life project administration and external experts. At the meeting the moderators will decide upon the outcome for each project.

Both technical assessment and scientific review will be the key factors guiding moderator decisions. The moderators should also take into account whether the timeline of the project, as indicated by the applicant, has been deemed correct by the technical experts and furthermore if this timeline matches the timelines of this Open Call as well as the overall EOSC-Life timeline. 

Following the decision at the selection panel meeting the Moderator for each individual proposal should then action one of two outcomes: 

Approval; Rejection. Approval and Rejection can be input directly in ARIA. The  Moderator  may  comment  on  the  proposal  outcome  including  advice  on  next  steps  for  the  applicant.  The  applicant  will  receive  any  reviewers’  comments,  their  scores  and  the  technical evaluation results. 

 

 

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