WP7 Organisation and management of PIANOFORTE R&I Open Calls

The WP7 team will constitute a Joint Calls Secretariat (JCS). The JCS will be in charge of the preparation and implementation of the three open calls (Tasks 7.2 and 7.3).
JCS will be a central call management office, separated from the rest of the project governance system (firewall) to avoid possible conflict of interest. The JCS will act as a central helpdesk to the applicants regarding all aspects of proposal drafting and submission.
Advice will be available continuously by telephone and e-mail throughout the entire period of call implementation.
After proposal submission, the JCS will be responsible for organizing the eligibility check, evaluation process and preparation of Ranked List of Eligible Projects (RLEP).
In order to make the open calls preparation transparent and to avoid any conflict of interest the Call Steering Committee (CSC) will be established. The CSC will monitor all actions taken by the JCS.

On the basis of the set of documents provided by WP2 Lead the CS will prepare an open calls documents. The final version of all documents will be provided to the EC RTD Fission Unit through a restricted communication channel.

Once finalized, the call documents will be kept confidential. The JCS will be responsible for drafting and finalizing all necessary call documents as well as collecting the necessary information. The documents include:

1. The Call Text, which specifies the aim and topic of the call, the application procedure (including deadlines), the evaluation procedure as well as other financial and legal issues including intellectual property and open access publication. In addition the funded research projects will be required to follow PIANOFORTE policies and guidelines.
2. The Governance of the Call and Evaluation document, which describes in detail steps and rules of the call for proposals, especially the evaluation and selection process.
3. Guidelines for applicants, which describe the administrative details of the application procedure and include country specific information from different national funding agencies.
4. Proposal templates for full proposal stage.
5. For the experts/reviewers/peer review panel: declaration of commitment, a declaration concerning confidentiality of information and a declaration of interests.

In addition to these documents, the task leader will provide an electronic submission and evaluation system for the calls.

The call for proposals will be published on the PIANOFORTE open R&I Call website, Funding & Tenders Portal as well as, simultaneously, on chosen communication channels aiming to ensure appropriate information coverage for the scientific communities concerned. If feasible and necessary, a call pre-announcement will be published to maximize the early mobilization of the radiation protection research community.
The date of publication will be set in consultation with EC RTD Fission Unit and in agreement with the Coordinator and WP 7 Leader.
The EC will be duly notified of the call and its content at least 30 days before the expected date of publication.
The call will be opened for the submission of proposals for at least 2 months. It is anticipated that the Open calls will be launched at months 10, 22 and 34.

The JCS will act as central helpdesk to the applicants regarding all aspects of proposal drafting and submission.

Applications are established according to the PIANOFORTE open research call specifications that will be validated in task 7.2. The JCS will gather lists of recognized external experts from different filed and with the necessary complementary scientific skills in order to allow a timely and transparent evaluation of each proposal by at least three experts. These experts may come from any country (EU or not), and may have a previous experience in assessing EURATOM or other EC RTD proposals. They must sign a declaration of commitment, a declaration concerning confidentiality of information and a declaration of interests as prepared in Task 7.2.

After proposal submission deadline, the JCS will be responsible for the formal check of the submitted proposals and the organization of the eligibility check of the applicants. All applications are evaluated by three independent evaluators, chosen after carefully checking any potential conflict of interest with the entities involved in the proposal.

The evaluation criteria and scoring system is based on Annex D of the EURATOM Work Programme 2021-2022, supplemented by a PIANOFORTE Open Call evaluation manual to be used by evaluating experts, which will be developed in Task 7.2. These criteria are made up of three groups of equal importance: scientific excellence, expected impact towards PIANOFORTE’s scientific and integration objectives; quality and efficiency of the implementation. In a second stage, all applications will be discussed in a Peer Review Panel (PRP) meeting, which will allow them to confront their quotations, and reach consensus on the establishment of a common Applications Assessment Report, as well as a Ranked List of Eligible Projects (RLEP) identifying those applications with marks above the eligibility thresholds as specified in the evaluation procedures defined in task 7.2.

The selection procedure will be followed by an independent expert who will act as an official observer and who will make a report. JCS will take all lawful steps to ensure confidentiality of information and documents obtained during the evaluation and selection procedures of the open research call. After the finalization of all open calls procedures, the list of experts will be made public.

It is important to determine whether the calls are efficient and relevant. After each call, the JCS will carry out the internal evaluation. The lessons learned will feed the call design and implementation of the next open research calls. In addition, detailed statistics and information of the submitted, evaluated and recommended and funded proposals will be collected and made available on the demand of the European Commission and other interested actors. After 3rd call JCS will prepare final report on the monitoring of open research calls.