Expertise and Evaluation of Research Projects in EaP countries
28. Sep 2015
The growing importance of competitive funding released through calls had a number of effects and created new challenges for the management and steering of the entire research systems in the EaP countries. Programme owners and dedicated funding agencies share the responsibility for evidence based funding decisions that aim at maximizing the impact of public investment in research and collaborative research. The review processes for proposals are acknowledged as fair procedures where clear selection criteria are communicated to applicants, quality control and transparency of the process is ensured. A key issue beside professional management of the call procedure and related communication processes is the quality of reviewers. Good review processes must include excellent peers, must involve international recognized experts and should in addition also respond to the situation in the countries. One of the approaches to improve the review quality is the use of international peers that also understand the country context. Current experience in multilateral funding shows, that the establishment of joint reviewer databases or exchange of data about qualified peer reviewers between the existing funding agencies in the EaP countries can substantially improve the peer review processes.
The IncoNet EaP project addresses the above challenges with two workshops, the first was organized in May 2014 in Chisinau where also a roadmap focusing on the most pressing challenges for the EaP countries was developed. The results were presented at the Eastern Partnership Panel on Research & Innovation in May 2014 and March 2015, the further uptake and funding of dedicated action from the EC side requests also visible signals from the region.
During the workshop in Kiev next steps toward the establishment of MoU between the main funding agencies are planned. Elements of the MoU will focus on (1) the exchange of reviewer data; (2) quality control measures for reviewer pools, (3) use of existing international reviewer databases, (4) joint capacity building actions for reviewers and the call procedures, (5) upgrading the programme level evaluation capacities.
Verwandte Artikel:
- Projekt: IncoNet EaP
- News: EaP STI Evaluation Platform: MoU signed