guide for remote referees table of contents4. detailed procedure concerning referees proposal and...

Guide for Remote Referees

Table of Contents Guide for Remote Referees .................................................................................................................... 1

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 2

2. The Funding Programmes............................................................................................................... 2

1. PhD fellowships .......................................................................................................................... 2

2. Special PhD fellowships .............................................................................................................. 2

3. Clinical PhD fellowships .............................................................................................................. 3

4. Postdoctoral Fellowships ............................................................................................................ 3

5. Senior Clinical Investigator ......................................................................................................... 3

6. Pegasus² ..................................................................................................................................... 3

7. Research grants .......................................................................................................................... 4

8. Research projects ....................................................................................................................... 4

3. Overview of the Evaluation Procedure ........................................................................................... 4

Step 1: Remote Peer Review .............................................................................................................. 4

Step 2: Expert Panel ........................................................................................................................... 4

Step3: Final Funding Decision ............................................................................................................. 5

Step 4: Feedback to Applicants .......................................................................................................... 5

4. Detailed Procedure concerning Referees ....................................................................................... 5

Proposal and Selection of Referees .................................................................................................... 5

Eligibility ............................................................................................................................................. 5

Confidentiality and Anonymity ........................................................................................................... 7

Scoring ................................................................................................................................................ 7

Timeframe .......................................................................................................................................... 8

Use of the e-portal ............................................................................................................................. 8

Content and Style of the Review ...................................................................................................... 12

5. Personal details ............................................................................................................................ 12

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1. Introduction

The Research Foundation Flanders (Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek - Vlaanderen, FWO) is an independent funding agency that supports fundamental research in all disciplines in Flanders (Belgium). The FWO's mission is to stimulate and to support groundbreaking research in all areas of science at Flemish universities, possibly in collaboration with other research institutes.

FWO funds excellent and promising researchers as well as research projects on the basis of an

interuniversity competition and an evaluation by national and international experts. The most

important criterion is the scientific quality of the researcher and the research proposal. The selection

is made regardless of scientific discipline, host institute, gender, political or religious conviction.

FWO does not propose a priori research themes and invites researchers to come up with their own

proposals. They can decide to which Expert Panel they submit their proposals. FWO has put in place

an Expert Panel for each research domain.

For the applications for a postdoctoral fellowship, a Pegasus² Fellowship, a senior clinical

investigatorship or a research project, FWO uses a two-step procedure: before the peer review in the

Expert Panels, remote referees working in the same field as the candidate are invited to comment on

the proposal.

2. The Funding Programmes

This section comprises general information on the main funding schemes handled by the 30 regular FWO panels.

1. PhD fellowships

The FWO aims to provide young and promising researchers with every opportunity to obtain a PhD in the best possible circumstances. The PhD fellowships represent the most important funding channel for achieving this objective.

For more information on this type of funding please visit: http://www.fwo.be/en/fellowships-

funding/phd-fellowships/phd-fellowship/

2. Special PhD fellowships

The Special PhD fellowship is intended to enable persons not employed within scientific research to complete a PhD within a year and to obtain study leave from their current employer for this purpose.


funding/phd-fellowships/special-phd-fellowship/

http://www.fwo.be/en/fellowships-funding/phd-fellowships/phd-fellowship/http://www.fwo.be/en/fellowships-funding/phd-fellowships/phd-fellowship/http://www.fwo.be/en/fellowships-funding/phd-fellowships/special-phd-fellowship/http://www.fwo.be/en/fellowships-funding/phd-fellowships/special-phd-fellowship/

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3. Clinical PhD fellowships

To narrow the gap between fundamental clinical research and clinical practice, specialists are encouraged to obtain a PhD. These fellowships are aimed at doctors, veterinary surgeons, dentists and pharmacists, recognised as specialists who are employed in a full-time clinical role at a university hospital in the Flemish Community. During the 2-year fellowship, the beneficiaries are released part-time from clinical and academic duties in order to pursue fundamental clinical research.


funding/phd-fellowships/clinical-phd-fellowship/

4. Postdoctoral Fellowships

The postdoctoral fellowships from the FWO are intended to help researchers who already have a PhD to develop an independent research career.


funding/postdoctoral-fellowships/postdoctoral-fellowship/ .

5. Senior Clinical Investigator

Translational research bridges the gap between fundamental and strategic biomedical basic research on the one hand, and clinical research on the other. Translational research essentially relies on well-educated medical researchers who must be able to establish a full-time career. The Senior Clinical Investigator fellowships are aimed precisely at this category of researchers and offers them the chance to obtain part-time leave from a clinical position in order to work on a research project.


funding/postdoctoral-fellowships/senior-clinical-investigator/ .

6. Pegasus²

With co-financing of the COFUND work programme (No 665501)* within the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) of Horizon 2020, the FWO launches a new mobility programme in 2015, entitled ‘[PEGASUS]², giving wings to your career’. This programme aims to stimulate the international mobility of researchers by attracting excellent postdoctoral researchers to the Flemish Community via incoming fellowships on the one hand, as well as by offering postdoctoral researchers in the Flemish Community the opportunity to carry out part of their research abroad on the other hand. The programme involves two types of postdoctoral fellowships: the INCOMING and OUTOING [PEGASUS]² Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowships.

For more information on this type of funding please visit: http://www.fwo.be/en/fellowships-funding/postdoctoral-fellowships/[pegasus]²-marie-skłodowska-curie-fellowships/ .

http://www.fwo.be/en/fellowships-funding/phd-fellowships/clinical-phd-fellowship/http://www.fwo.be/en/fellowships-funding/phd-fellowships/clinical-phd-fellowship/http://www.fwo.be/en/fellowships-funding/postdoctoral-fellowships/postdoctoral-fellowship/http://www.fwo.be/en/fellowships-funding/postdoctoral-fellowships/postdoctoral-fellowship/http://www.fwo.be/en/fellowships-funding/postdoctoral-fellowships/senior-clinical-investigator/http://www.fwo.be/en/fellowships-funding/postdoctoral-fellowships/senior-clinical-investigator/

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7. Research grants

In order to support young or established researchers (up to the maximum level of Professor) in their work and, if necessary, in the purchase of small equipment, an application can be made for a Research Grant.

For more information on this type of funding please visit: http://www.fwo.be/en/fellowships-funding/research-grants/.

8. Research projects

The objective of the FWO’s Research projects is to advance fundamental scientific research, on the initiative of researchers from all disciplines. The Research projects constitute an important tool with which to stimulate collaboration between different research teams.

For more information on this type of funding please visit: http://www.fwo.be/en/fellowships-funding/research-projects/research-project/.

3. Overview of the Evaluation Procedure

Step 1: Remote Peer Review

Before the meetings of the Expert Panels take place, each proposal is reviewed by remote experts. Each applicant is asked to propose ten potential external referees. From this list, the FWO will invite a number of referees to evaluate the application in writing.

Step 2: Expert Panel

The application will be evaluated by an Expert Panel, that will judge on the qualifications of the candidates. It will give an advice to the Board of Trustees, that makes the final decision.

At FWO there are 30 subject specific Expert Panels and 1 interdisciplinary panel in place. Each panel consists in principle of 16 experts, with some exceptions. A majority of these experts are affiliated to a non-Flemish university.

The Expert Panel judges the applications in the following way:

1. For each proposal, there are at least two and preferably three “preliminary assessors”, who

are asked to read the proposal thoroughly and provide substantial comments on it. To this

end, they have a dedicated template at their disposal listing all the selection criteria with

space for comments. An overall score is also expected.

2. The chair and vice-chair of the panel decide who will assess which application(s), taking into

account the specific expertise of each Panel member, and avoiding any conflict of interest.

3. On the basis of the preliminary assessments, the panel as a whole discusses the proposal and

attributes an overall score on the basis of a consensus. The preliminary assessments are thus

only an input to the discussion and by no means a final conclusion.

http://www.fwo.be/en/fellowships-funding/research-grants/http://www.fwo.be/en/fellowships-funding/research-grants/http://www.fwo.be/en/fellowships-funding/research-projects/research-project/http://www.fwo.be/en/fellowships-funding/research-projects/research-project/

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4. Finally, the Expert Panel establishes a list with proposals to be funded. For research projects

it has to decide on the research budget that will eventually be granted to each project. For

fellowships, the panel makes a ranking of fundable applications.

5. For the Pegasus² Fellowships only, the rankings of the different panels involved are endorsed

on the next meeting of the Committee for International Cooperation, which then establishes

an overall ranking for the incoming and outgoing Pegasus² fellowships respectively. These

rankings, however, cannot overrule the earlier rankings established by the regular expert

panels.

Step3: Final Funding Decision

The final funding decision is made by the Board of Trustees and based on the advice given by the Expert Panel and, for the Pegasus² fellowships, that of the Committee for International Cooperation.

Step 4: Feedback to Applicants

After the funding decision is communicated to the applicants, they will always receive feedback on the evaluation of their proposal. The staff of FWO provides for this informationwith the anonymised prereports by panel members and the anonymised reports of the external referees. This feedback is important in order to enable the applicant to improve the quality of a re-application, all the more so since at FWO the same proposal for the same type of research funding can only be submitted twice.

4. Detailed Procedure concerning Referees

Proposal and Selection of Referees

The applicant is asked to send in a list with the names of ten experts in the research field of the application, who might act as referee. A referee should be appointed at a university, a research institute or a research unit of another type of organisation, on at least a postdoctoral level.

The FWO staff selects at random from this list the referees who will be invited to evaluate the

proposal and the candidate. The goal is to collect at least two remote reviews for each application.

If the response is too low to reach this goal with the first list of ten referees, the applicant will be

asked to provide for five extra names of potential referees. No further names will be asked for, even

if less than two referees have handed in a review.

Eligibility

Are not eligible as referee:

members of the Board of Trustees of the FWO;

members of an FWO-Expertpanel;

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persons appointed to a Belgian university, research institute or any other organization; or, in

the case of calls for proposals in the framework of bilateral or lead agency agreements,

persons appointed to similar institutions or organizations in the country where the foreign

project partner is professionally active;

persons with a professional appointment to a foreign institute where the applicant(s) had

been enrolled as a student or professional after January 1st of the year n-3 (n=year of

application);

any co-authors with the applicants of a publication that was submitted or published after

January 1st of the year n-3 (n=year of application);

'Co-authorship' is to be understood as follows:

co-authorship of a monography of which the applicant is co-author as well;

co-autorship of an article or another type of contribution to a collection

(book, journal issue, report, congress proceedings, abstract,...) of which the

applicant is co-author as well;

Editors are not regarded as co-authors insofar as they have not also acted as

what is understood under 'co-author' as described above. Co-editors of the

applicant are not accepted as an external referee.

partners of the applicant(s) in a research cooperation ,whether formalised in a research

project or not, that has been applied for or has been running after January 1st of the year n-3

(n=year of application. In this context, the following shall in any case qualify as research

cooperation (non-exhaustive list):

Cooperation under a research fellowship, granted by the FWO;

Cooperation under a research project, whether relating to a specific subject

or not or under an international cooperation project, granted by the FWO;

Cooperation under the Odysseus programme or the Big Science programme,

granted by the FWO;

Cooperation under a Scientific Research Network, granted by the FWO;

Cooperation under programmes similar to those mentioned above, granted

by organisations other than the FWO;

Joint research work not formalised in a cooperation structure as defined

above;

Research carried out in the research areas and/or with research facilities

provided by the applicant to the referee or vice versa;

…

If the expert who is invited as a referee considers himself on the basis of this list or for whatever

other reason unfit as a referee out of a conflict of interests, (s)he is kindly asked to notify the FWO

staff.

Before submitting the referee report, the referee will be asked by means of a pop-up that by

submitting his/her advice electronically, (s)he declares that (s)he isn’t a member of any scientific

committee of the FWO, that no joint research papers, abstracts or books were published during the

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last three years, that there are no ongoing joint research projects or any other elements that raise a

conflict of interests.

See for the rules in detail the Regulation on Internal and External Peer Review, art. 12:

http://www.fwo.be/en/the-fwo/organisation/fwo-expertpanels/regulations-fwo-internal-

and-external-peer-review/.

Confidentiality and Anonymity

The applicant and the referees are not to communicate with each other prior to or during the procedure on the research proposal. The FWO staff will take care of all necessary communication towards both parties.

The anonymity of the referee is at all times guaranteed by FWO. The review and scores as provided

for by the referee as well as the latter’s name, will be integrated in the application file that is handed

over to the Expert Panel. None of this information will be made known to the applicant. However,

the FWO staff will use the content of the text field of their assessment that is non-confidential.

In a pop-up that appears before entering the page of the e-portal containing the application itself

and the evaluation form, the referee is asked to declare whether (s)he agrees with our rules on the

confidentiality concerning this proposal and on the use of its content by the referee, i.e. for no other

means than the expert review in this application procedure.

Scoring

Apart from written comments, the referee is asked to ad scores for the following criteria:

Justification of requested funds

International scientific level of the research team

Importance of the project

Collaboration and coordination between research teams

Methodology

Originality and innovating nature of the project

Feasibility of the project

Focusing of the project

Overall score.

The following scores can be given:

A+ – top ;

A – excellent ;

A- – very good ;

B+ - good ;

B – fair;

B- – average ;

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C – under average ;

D – unacceptable.

Timeframe

The referees are invited to fill in their review and scores for an application within one month. The referee can motivate his positive or negative response to our invitation.

After 14 days, an e-mail will be sent just to remind the referee of the submission date.

Use of the e-portal

In the invitation mail, the referee will find the instructions on how to proceed in the e-portal. These instructions and related data are explained here more extensively.

1. Login to the FWO-E-portal:

http://www.fwo-eloket.be/FWO.ELoket.WebUI/Login.aspx?lang=EN-us

You will arrive at the following screen:

You can also log in at the home page of FWO:

http://www.fwo-eloket.be/FWO.ELoket.WebUI/Login.aspx?lang=EN-us

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To log in you have to fill in your username and password at the spot where the red arrow points to.

Your E-portal account is:

Username: …

Password: …

Please keep in mind that username and password are case and space sensitive.

1. After logging in you will see this screen:

Choose ‘reviews’. This link will bring you to the following screen:

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Follow the link ‘Enter’ at the right. Entering is not possible if at the pop-up that appears when clicking

on the Enter-link you answer negatively to the question whether you agree with our rules on the

confidentiality concerning this proposal and on the use of its content by the referee, i.e. for no other

means than the expert review in this application procedure.

3. On the next screen, you'll find the PDF with the application and the fields where you can fill in your

review and scores. You will find the proposal in PDF format on the left side of the screen.

The review should be a text of not more than 750 words. There are two text fields: one for

information that can be communicated to the applicant, another for confidential remarks, that will

only be read by the panel members. Concerning the scores, the percentage into which you rank the

candidate or the research group (in the case of research projects) should be based on your

comparison with what might be expected of a researcher or group in this phase of the researcher’s

career or the group’s existence and on a comparison with other researchers or groups of the same

level you know.

At the end of this web page you are also asked what you consider to be your three main publications

in your field of expertise. This list enables the FWO to assess the capacity of external referees to

evaluate the application.

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Don’t forget to save, if you want to keep the text you already typed in, or to submit your final

version.

Before submitting your report, you will be asked whether you meet all the requirements for eligibility

as a referee at the moment you submit. Submission is impossible if you answer ‘no’.

Content and Style of the Review

The reviewer should, as far as possible, comment on the research proposal and the candidate profile following the list with criteria for which a score is to be filled in (these specific criteria for each funding scheme are the same as the selection criteria under point 2 above).

The review should be as long as the referee thinks appropriate, although it should be as concise as it

can be without losing clarity and adequacy. The focus lies on the key strengths and weaknesses. The

maximum for the entire text is 4.500 characters (ca. 750 words). It’s not possible to give in more

words in the review field on the e-portal.

The review should be objective in content and tone. Personal or dismissive language has to be

avoided.

5. Personal details

When logged in, the referee will also have access to a link ‘personal details’.

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With the button ‘Amend’ below the screen it is possible to adapt these data on the screen that

follows:

Do not to forget to save!

For data like diplomas, functions, …, it’s only possible to add data, not to change them. If you want

changes to be made, please contact the FWO staff.

It would be appreciated if you would fill in your disciplines. You will find the disciplines that you can

choose by clicking the button ‘Edit Profile’ on the horizontal bar on top of the screen and then

’Disciplines’. With the button ‘Add’ you will reach the list with domains under which you will find

more detailed discipline descriptions.

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