In April, the ResInfra@DR project launched an Open Call for experienced evaluators who want to be included in a Registry of Research Infrastructure (RI) Reviewers. The Call was opened until the end of July. In these three months, while the Call was active, the ResInfra@DR consortium received 357 applications from 34 different countries. 274 of these applications were valid and thus considered by the selection commission, while the remaining 83 applications were disqualified (being either incomplete or not fulfilling the requirements).

In August, a commission was formed, consisting of six members of ResInfra@DR team: Raluca Ciobotaru and Ioana Spanache from the Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding – UEFISCDI, Romania; Desislava Asenova from ARC Fund, Bulgaria; Lubomir Bilsky, Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technological Information – SCSTI, Slovakia; Kalin Mutavchiev, Ministry of Education and Science, Bulgaria; and Sinisa Marcic, Ministry of Science and Technology of Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Each application was assessed by two experts, who worked independently from each other. If both experts reached the same conclusion (approval or rejection), their decision was considered as final. In cases when their decisions were different, a third and decisive assessment was conducted by Marko Hajdinjak from ARC Fund, who is responsible for coordination of activities in WP4.

After the end of the assessment of applications, 163 experts were approved for the inclusion in the Registry; 64 were not approved (mostly because they had no previous experience as evaluators, or their experience was not relevant for the purpose of the Registry); and the remaining 47 were asked to provide additional information.

In September, all experts who submitted complete applications were informed about the results of the assessment process. Those who were approved received their Registry profiles and were asked to approve or if necessary revise the information. Many have used this opportunity to update the data submitted during the registration process. A majority of those, who were requested to provide clarification regarding their evaluation experiences have also replied. 27 of them were subsequently approved for the Registry, 4 have withdrawn their application, while the others did not reply. The 64 experts, who were not approved, were also notified about the outcome and given a chance to provide additional information in order to have their application re-assessed. Some responded, and two of them were approved, thus bringing the total number of RI Reviewers in the ResInfra@DR Registry to 192.  

The Registry is currently being language-edited, and certain technical issues are being resolved. In the second half of November and in December, the draft Registry will be presented to policy-makers and other relevant stakeholders from all Danube-region countries on several webinars. These presentations will be used to collect feedback (comments and suggestions) that will help us to improve the Registry. Should changes, including additional information, be necessary, reviewers included in the Registry could be asked for further updates and revisions of their profiles in January. A possible outcome of the webinars could be also recommendations for inclusion of new relevant experts in the Registry. In this case, ResInfra@DR project might issue a Second Call for RI Reviewers in January 2019.

The Registry should be finalised and fully operational in April. It will then be officially handed over to the authorised representatives of the Ministries of Science and Research, or other equivalent ministries in all Danube region countries. After this, it will be up to them to select and contact the appropriate experts whenever the need arises for ex-ante assessments of research infrastructures.

ResInfra@DR project uses this opportunity to again thank all the experts who have applied for the Registry of Research Infrastructure Reviewers!

Image source: photo of pattern, pollen, insect, invertebrate, design, bee, honeycomb, beehive, honey bee, beekeeping, membrane winged insect; from pxhere; licensed under CC0 Public Domain