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Shaping European Research Leaders for Marine Sustainability (SEAS)
SEAS evaluation process

Evaluation process of SEAS fellow applications

This page provides information about the SEAS evaluation process.

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UiB will recruit international external experts to evaluate candidates for UiB's SEAS postdoctoral research fellow positions. This page provides an overview of the expert evaluation process. 

The third call for applications is open between April 1st and June 12th, 2023. UiB will initially screen all applications for eligibility, and we envisage sending out all eligible applications for external review in the middle of November.

The SEAS programme will announce each position in Jobbnorge and will set up evaluation panels, one for each of the positions announced. There will be at least 3 experts in each panel. Our aim is to set up panels that reflect diversity and broad scientific expertise. 

Selected panel members cannot have any bindings to UiB, applicants or their supervisors that could influence their judgements, and must confirm this before the review process starts. One member of each panel will be appointed as rapporteur. For appointed SEAS evaluators, please find more detailes about the evaluation procedure in the SEAS Guide for evaluators

Selection of international experts

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.

Overall timeline for the expert review process

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.

Evaluation panel deliverables

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. 

    Interested in becoming one of our SEAS expert evaluators?

    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.