Evaluation of national R&D units with support from the European Science Foundation

The first phase of the evaluation of applications submitted to Call for the Evaluation of FCT R&D Units will have the active collaboration of the European Science Foundation (ESF). In this evaluation exercise 324 units are candidates for evaluation, with more than 15000 proposed integrated members. Given the size and scope of the exercise, FCT has chosen to involve the ESF, benefiting from its experience of more than three decades in international evaluation processes. The involvement of the ESF will always take place in close collaboration with the services and the FCT management.

The ESF will be responsible for selecting and allocating the international experts for the evaluation of the applications submitted, and will collaborate in all procedures associated with the first stage of evaluation of the units. The FCT Steering Committee will retain responsibility for designating the evaluators and panel members selected and recommended by the ESF.

The choice of the ESF arose in the context of consultation with foreign organizations similar to the FCT, for the designation of evaluation panels for the current evaluation exercise of R&D Units by the FCT Board of Directors. In its mission to promote international cooperation in scientific research programs in almost all scientific domains, the ESF collaborates closely with its member organizations, as is the case of the FCT. The support to evaluation exercises of projects, scientific networks and institutions is one of the strands of its action. The ESF has been coordinating evaluation exercises for joint projects of the European Space Agency / NASA / Space Agencies of Canada and Japan, as well as several European universities and European networks and consortia.

In addition to three decades of experience in conducting evaluation exercises (our own or for other organizations), ESF has conducted several studies on the practice ofpeer-review by European funding agencies, and published several reports and best practice guides.

The current evaluation exercise of the scientific research and technological development units began in July 2013. The evaluation of national R&D institutions is regularly organized by FCT and results in the attribution of a classification, which determines the amount of funding to be attributed to each institution. This evaluation and the associated funding take effect in January 2015, and is valid for a period of six years.