In ENRICH-TOGETHER, a rigorous seven-phase evaluation and selection process will be in place to ensure an open, transparent and merit-based selection of candidates.
Phase 1) Eligibility Check and Notification of Ineligible Applications:
- Applicants with eligible and ineligible applications will receive an e-mail within two weeks after the call deadline. Ineligible applications will be informed of their ineligibility of their application and its reasons.
Phase 2) International Peer Review:
- Only applicants that have fulfilled the eligibility criteria will pass to next stage. Each eligible application dossier will be evaluated by 3 scientific experts outside of METU. Each scientific expert will provide one IER (Individual Evaluation Report). The peer review evaluation criteria are presented in the table below.
Phase 3) Interview:
- Peer reviewed candidates who have reached both the criterion (3.0/5.0) and the overall (70/100) threshold by all 3 external experts will be invited for interview.
- All other applicants will receive notification via e-mail that they have not been selected, together with their 3 IERs (Individual Evaluation Report).
- An Interview Panel will be set up per candidate invited to the interview with the involvement of 1 scientific expert outside of METU, 1 scientific expert from METU (but not potential supervisor) and one person from the Project Management Team.
- All interviews will be conducted in English through Zoom, Teams or a similar video-conference tool on the same specified date(s) for all applicants. Interviews will last 20 minutes. During the interview, candidates will be asked to make a 10-minute presentation (a template will NOT be shared), followed by 10 minutes of questions and answers. During the interviews, the candidates will be evaluated on three criteria: motivation, trajectory and expected career boost, communication skills. Each interview panel will provide one common score and one common ISR (Interview Summary Report). The interview evaluation criteria are presented in the table below.
SCALING INTERPRETATION OF MARKS
Phase 4) Final Ranking of Candidates:
- A ranked list of applicants will be made following all interview panels, considering both the criterion (3.0/5.0) and the overall (70/100) threshold.
- A final ranked list (10 main + 5 reserve proposals), where the peer review score will count for 75% and the interview score will count for 25%, will be prepared.
Phase 5) Ethics Check:
- Prior to the announcement of the funding decision, the research proposals of the applicants in the main and reserve list are subjected to an ethical review. The Ethics Committee (EC) will determine whether the proposals contain any relevant ethical aspect requiring an Ethics Committee Report or whether there is an ethical issue that has not been adequately addressed. For each proposal, the EC will issue a binding report including, if necessary, the changes to be carried out on the ethical aspects described in these projects, of which the candidates will be notified. The beneficiaries will have 2 weeks after notification to carry out these changes and present them to the EC for review and acceptance. Despite two reviews, if the beneficiary does not meet the requirements of the report, her/his right to the fellowship will lapse.
Phase 6) Notification of Accepted and Rejected Proposals:
Main List:
- The applicants on the main list will be offered a fellowship. The applicants on the main list will have 2 weeks to inform METU on their final decision.
- When a position is offered to a candidate, she/he will be informed via e-mail and receive their binding Ethics Committee See Phase 5 above.
- All researchers will have 4 months to relocate after the funding decision.
Reserve List:
- Applicants on the reserve list may be offered a fellowship when an applicant on the main list withdraws her/his proposal or cannot continue their fellowships for any reason.
- After the applicants on the main list informing METU within two weeks, each applicant on the reserve list will be informed in order of ranking and each applicant on the reserve list will have 2 weeks to inform METU on their final decision.
Rejected Proposals:
- Applicants with rejected proposals receive an e-mail informing them of the rejection of their application, explaining the reasons of rejection via the three IERs (Individual Evaluation Report) and 1 ISR (Interview Summary Report).
Phase 7) Redress Procedure:
- Applicants who have any objections to the evaluation process – including eligibility check – may apply the redress procedure, within 1 week after their notification of their ineligible application (end of Phase 1) or rejected proposal (end of Phase 6).
- Requests for redress may be made with regard to procedural issues. Hence, redress is not an automatic re-evaluation and the judgement of appropriately qualified experts is not called into question.
- Redress requests are formally sent by an e-mail by the ineligible/rejected applicant to the project e-mail address.
- The redress procedure will be completed within 2 weeks.
- The applicant will be informed about the rejection or acceptance decision.
- Upon the acceptance, the application will be subjected to the regular evaluation process, after which a rejection or a funding decision will be shared with the applicant.
- Funding decisions upon redress will be synchronized with their respective cohorts as much as possible.