MERIT Management
The Management Board is composed of 3 full-time employees of the Central Bohemian Innovation Center Coordinator. The Management Board provides support to the candidates at the application stage, checks for the eligibility of all submitted proposals, and coordinates the whole evaluation and selection process and the overall implementation of the programme.
MERIT committees
Approving the evaluation and selection process and monitoring the research projects
Steering Committee
The Steering Committee is composed of 5 members related to the Central Bohemian Region and representing non-academic and academic (public and private) sectors
They will approve the final list of proposals recommended for funding based on the final Consensus and Panel Report. During the fellowships, the Committee will monitor and approve the fellows’ progress reports. They will be authorised to suspend or terminate a fellowship due to the unsatisfactory performance of the fellow and they will provide feedback and propose adjustments to the running projects as well as the Programme in general.
Pavel Jovanovič
CEO of the Beneficiary, SIC (non-academic public sector)
Jaroslav Cingr
Head of Grant Department of the Central Bohemian Region (non-academic public sector)
Jana Beranová
Director of IFER, a private research organisation (non-academic private sector)
Lenka Kučerová
Community Manager at a Prague AI ecosystem building organisation, prg.ai (academic/non-academic public/private sector)
Tomáš Kostelecký
Member of the Academy Council of the Czech Academy of Sciences (academic public sector)
Ethics screening and the ethics review
Ethics Committee
The Ethics Committee is composed of independent ethics experts. All successful proposals (ranked list and reserve list) will be subject to an ethics screening. Ethics experts will determine whether there are any relevant ethical aspects of the beneficiaries’ projects that have not been adequately addressed. Before the beginning of any fellowship that has raised an ethical issue, the fellow must have obtained all approvals for implementing the task/s from any (national or local) ethics committee or other bodies such as data protection authorities.
Any research proposals involving the use of Human Embryonic Stem Cells (hESCs) or human embryos (hE) will automatically proceed to the Research Executive Agency (REA) of the European Commission for an Ethics Review.
Lucia Machová Urdzíková
Chairwomen of the Ethics Committee
Ineke Malsch
Member of the Ethics Committee
Gabriela Pavlinková
Member of the Ethics Committee
Vasiliki Molaki
Member of the Ethics Committee
Ombudsperson
Michal Zemanec
OmbudspersonThe role of the Ombudsperson will be to resolve any potential issues raised by selected researchers during the fellowships, and to take immediate action, if necessary. During the fellowships, fellows may contact the Ombudsperson if they have a problem that has not been resolved by their employer or the MERIT Management Board in the following situations: the terms and conditions of the programme as stated in the Terms and Conditions document (financial conditions, training offer, etc.) are not met; or if they are being bullied or discriminated against in the workplace or if they feel any unfair treatment towards them in connection with their employment in the MERIT programme.
Redress process
Redress Committee
The Redress Committee is composed of the Ombudsperson of MERIT, the HR Specialist of SIC and the Head of the Research, Transfer and Cooperation team of SIC.
Candidates will have 10 calendar days to apply for a redress procedure after being notified of their eligibility check results after the deadline of the call. All candidates will have recourse to redress solely with regard to procedural issues or the perceived incorrect application of eligibility criteria, and not with regard to the scientific judgments of the evaluators and members of the Interview Panel. The Redress Committee decisions are final.
Scientific evaluation of assigned proposals
International evaluators
The pool of evaluators is composed of independent experts of any nationality. Each research proposal will be evaluated by 3 experts remotely. One of the evaluators will serve as a Rapporteur and will engage with the other evaluators (remotely) to prepare a Consensus Report for each application, based on the evaluation criteria and scoring.
Oral interviews
Interview Panel
The interview panel will be composed of the 3 reviewers of the proposal and another international evaluator as an observer (for scientific discussion/independent observation); a permanent member of the Steering Committee; a member of the Equality and Diversity Committee (for gender/intersectional topics); the Programme Manager; an HR representative and a Director of the corresponding implementing partner to explain the working conditions and to enable the partners to choose their future employees. Oral interviews will be held through the online platforms ZOOM, Teams or Skype or using the virtual showrooms of the relevant implementing partners.
Prevention of unconscious gender bias, Gender dimension in research
Equality and Diversity experts
5 experts on gender in science and Open Science and prominent researchers, of mixed gender and different origins and ethnicities.
They reviewed and approved the call documents and procedures before the launch of each call to prevent any unintentional bias, particularly gender bias or the discouragement of female candidates from being incorporated into the Programme. They will review the reflection on the gender dimension in the fellows’ research proposals and be part of the Interview Panel to discuss these issues.
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The Management Board will check for the eligibility of all submitted proposals, coordinate the entire evaluation and selection process and the overall implementation of the programme. Do you have a question? Do not hesitate to contact us.