Dear Mr L.,

On 13 December 2001, you made a complaint on behalf of the European Sociality Research Network (ESOR) to the European Ombudsman concerning Call for Proposals IHP-RTN-00-2 under the Research Framework Programme of the European Commission.

On 21 January 2002, I forwarded the complaint to the President of the European Commission. You sent further letters on 15 and 29 January 2002. Your letter of 29 January 2002 was forwarded to the Commission on 6 February 2002. The Commission sent its opinion on 26 March 2002. I forwarded it to you with an invitation to make observations, which you sent on 24 May 2002. On 10 September 2002, you sent a further letter.

I am writing now to let you know the results of the inquiries that have been made.

THE COMPLAINT

In December 2001, the complainant lodged a complaint with the European Ombudsman on behalf of the European Sociality Research Network (ESOR). The complaint concerned Call for Proposals IHP-RTN-00-2 under the second RTN (Research Training Network) Call of the Research Framework Programme of the European Commission. The complainant was the co-ordinator of ESOR, a consortium consisting of six European Universities.

The complainant believed that the proposals submitted under the RTN Call had been unfairly evaluated. In the "Guide for Proposers" applicable to the Call, the size of the proposal to be submitted was clearly specified by the mentioning of strict page limits that applied to each section of the proposal. These limits were vital as they determine the amount of information that the proposers are allowed to supply. The crucial role of this is exemplified by the fact that the proposers are asked to describe the scope of a long international research project on one A4 page and the multidisciplinarity of such a project on half an A4 page.

As regards ESOR's proposal, the comments of the evaluation panel were quite positive but the panel mainly regretted that more information had not been supplied. Given the strict page limits that were to be respected, the complainant found this suggestion contradictory and contacted the responsible member at the Commission. From the telephone conversation, it became clear that the strict page limitation had been completely disregarded and that proposers who broke this rule fully benefited from doing so.

The complainant therefore considered that the Commission had failed to apply the rules set by the Call and that this constituted maladministration and misallocation of public funds. The complainant stated that the fairness of the procedure could be restored by reconstituting the ranking among the proposals that complied with the rules, eliminating proposals that did not comply.

Following the phone call, the complainant sent a letter on 8 November 2001 to the responsible Head of Unit at the Commission underlining the unfairness of the procedure asking him to remedy the situation. No reply was received to this letter.

In summary, the complainant alleged that the Commission failed to apply the rules set by the Call and claimed that the errors be put right.

THE INQUIRY

The Commission's opinion

The complaint was forwarded to the European Commission, who submitted the following opinion.

The Commission stated that the complainant was the co-ordinator of ESOR who submitted a proposal in the area of economic, social and human sciences under the RTN Call of the Improving Human Potential Programme that was published on 15 December 2000. The deadline for proposals was 4 May 2001 and the evaluation procedure performed by independent experts was completed in September 2001. Evaluation summary reports were sent to all applicants on 31 October 2001.

As regards ESOR's proposal, the evaluation summary report pointed to a number of shortcomings in the description of the project, notably the lack of precision concerning the research method, the co-ordination of research and training activities and the relation between the training and the research modules. The marks awarded to ESOR placed it as number 30 on the list of proposals considered for funding. The budget for the RTN Call only allowed for 16 proposals to be funded.

On 7 November 2001, the complainant called the project officer in charge of the RTN Call in order to obtain supplementary information. In particular, the complainant asked for clarification on the number of pages indicated in the Guide for Proposers for the different sections, arguing that all proposers that did not strictly conform to these limits should have been excluded from the evaluation. The project officer informed the complainant that the indicated number of pages was to be considered as guidelines and not as strict requirements. The Commission could therefore not reject proposals that did not strictly observe the maximum page limits. The number of pages of the different proposals were therefore not systematically and strictly controlled. The complainant offered to submit additional information to better describe the research content of ESOR's proposal. The project officer stressed that the evaluation of a proposal could only be based on material received before the deadline of the Call.

On 8 November 2001, the complainant wrote to the Head of Unit responsible for the RTN. The Commission replied to the letter on 19 December 2001. The Commission regretted that the reply had not been sent earlier as this would potentially have avoided further proceedings in this matter. Due to the workload at the end of the budgetary year 2001, the reply had however unfortunately been delayed. In the letter, the Commission explained to the complainant why a proposal that did not strictly observe the indicated number of pages was not to be rejected, i.e. because it is a guideline and should not be interpreted as an eligibility criteria. The letter also clarified that the independent expert's comments in relation to the shortcomings of ESOR's proposal were essentially due to the lack of clear and precise arguments directly related to the ESOR project rather than to the lack of information as such. It was furthermore pointed out that other proposals that were of the recommended length had been highly valued by the experts. The Head of Unit furthermore provided the complainant with his telephone number and e-mail address should the complainant wish to obtain further clarifications.

The Commission concluded that it hoped that the letter of 19 December 2001 had provided sufficient additional information to the complainant in order to reassure ESOR that the experts had evaluated its proposal as fairly as other proposals under this Call, using the eligibility and evaluation criteria, and the guidelines respectively.

The complainant's observations

ESOR sent extensive observations on the Commission's opinion, which can be summarised as follows.

The complainant found that, the Commission's view that the Guide for Proposers were to be interpreted by the proposers, obliged them to interpret a clear set of detailed instructions, which they had been asked to keep. The complainant stressed that it was an untenable position to ask the proposers to develop interpretations that transgress the Commission's own instructions and that do not guarantee a fair selection process. The Commission should have described the rules as indicative in order to show that they were non-restrictive. The obligation to submit the proposal on a specific page format (A4), the minute determination of limits per section (to the level of half pages) and the repeated use of the word "maximum" do not permit any indicative interpretation. The importance of these limits is crucial, particularly since they are so low. Any additional space for providing information is a great comparative advantage.

The complainant stated that the eligibility criteria were not clearly mentioned in the Guide for Proposers, for example, the "checklist" contained therein was not exclusive. The complainant therefore found the Commission's position, that the structure of the proposals was not mentioned as an eligibility criterion in the Guide, to be unjustified. The complainant further stressed that according to the Guide for the Evaluators, the independent experts are exclusively competent for the evaluation of the scientific design and method of proceeding. The administrative eligibility of each proposal on the other hand, is an issue to be dealt with in advance by the services of the Commission.

The complainant moreover pointed out that it had no reason to believe that the experts' scientific evaluation was unfair as such and ESOR was pleased that its proposal had been considered eligible for funding. However, this was not the subject of the complainant's request. It rather wanted the Commission to ensure that the ranking list for funding eligibility was drawn up on the basis of the proposals that had adhered to the conditions of the Call.

In addition, the complainant made some comments on the Commission's opinion as far as the evaluation of ESOR's proposal was concerned. The complainant pointed out that the Commission's opinion gave a general impression that ESOR's proposal was unsuccessful. The complainant thought that the proposal had been entirely successful as it was considered eligible for funding in a very competitive process. The complainant did not consider the Commission's interpretation of the expert's comments on the proposal to be appropriate, since this was a matter of specialised scientific evaluation within a narrow field of expertise. The complainant also put forward detailed comments on the Commission's interpretation.

The complainant summarised by stating that it hoped that the Ombudsman would restore the fairness of the evaluation process and enforce the fundamental principle that rules should be applied by those who have the power to set them.

THE DECISION

1 The evaluation of the RTN Call

1.1 The complainant was the co-ordinator of ESOR, a consortium who submitted a proposal under the second RTN Call of the Improving Human Potential Programme of the European Commission. The complainant had strictly applied the page limits specified in the "Guide for Proposers" applicable to the Call. The complainant later found out that proposals disregarding the page limits had fully benefited from doing so. The complainant alleged that the Commission failed to apply the rules set by the Call and claimed that the errors be put right.

1.2 The Commission stated that the proposals that did not strictly observe the page limits in the Guide for Proposers were not to be rejected, because it is a guideline and should not be interpreted as an eligibility criterion. It pointed out that other proposals that were of the recommended length had been highly valued by the experts. The Commission concluded that the experts had evaluated ESOR's proposal as fairly as other proposals under the Call, using the eligibility and evaluation criteria, and the guidelines respectively.

1.3 The Ombudsman notes that the Guide for Proposers states that "Applicants are asked to keep the size of the Proposal Description within the given guidelines. It should be unnecessary, and could be counterproductive, to submit an excess of information.". There is nothing to indicate that the size of the proposals is therefore an eligibility criterion. The Guide rather mentions that it contains guidelines. Furthermore, it mentions that an excess of information is unnecessary and can be counterproductive. It does however not mention that an excess of information means that the proposal will be excluded.

1.4 In the light of the above, the Ombudsman finds that the fact that the Commission did not consider the page limitations in the Guide for Proposers to be an absolute requirement or to be part of the eligibility criteria, does not constitute an instance of maladministration.

2 Conclusion

On the basis of the Ombudsman's inquiries into this complaint, there appears to have been no maladministration by the Commission. The Ombudsman therefore closes the case.

The President of the European Commission will also be informed of this decision.

Yours sincerely,

 

Jacob SÖDERMAN