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 a partner in the EOSC-Life consortium (either a beneficiary or a linked third party as listed explicitly in the Grand Agreement)
  • 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. In cases where the internal applicant her-/himself is an expert from one or more of the selected work packages, the Moderators will need to ensure that the technical evaluation is done by a technical expert from an independent research group to the proposal. Technical experts will be asked to send their evaluation to the moderator within two 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 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.