Evaluation and Selection of Proposals

Evaluation and Selection Procedures

• Proposals submitted in reply to this AO will be registered and checked for their eligibility for evaluation (proposals must fall within the scope and objectives of this AO, must be complete, and must arrive before the closing date). Rejected applicants will be informed by mail immediately.

  If assessed as eligible, the proposal will be given a reference number and assigned to a discipline (space science, earth observation, space technology, ...) for further evaluation. Certain proposals may be assigned to more than one discipline.

  Proposers will receive an acknowledgement of receipt, quoting the reference number and discipline to which the proposal has been assigned.

• The scientific evaluation will be organised within each discipline by the appropriate ESA Directorate using external peer evaluation groups. Technology proposals will be evaluated as described under Section 3.3. The peer evaluation will result in a ranked shortlist of proposals, which will then be presented to the established ESA User Advisory Bodies, and ultimately to the relevant ESA User Programme Boards. This will result in a list of proposals recommended for flight by each discipline. Proposals assigned to more than one discipline will be included in the list of one lead discipline, taking into account the recommendations of the other discipline(s). Proposals not falling within the established disciplines will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

• In parallel, a technical evaluation team will assess the technical aspects of the proposals. This team will also undertake preliminary accommodation and operations assessments.

• From the shortlist of experiments, payload groupings will be investigated with respect to compatibility with accommodation and utilisation resource constraints and compatibility between the instruments themselves.

• If the overall payload complement exceeds the available utilisation resources, the number of candidate experiments will be reduced in consultation with each discipline, the User Programme Board having the authority for final experiment selection within each discipline's allocated share of resources.

• The allocation of resources to the different disciplines will be recommended to the Manned Space Programme Board by a multidisciplinary 'European Utilisation Board', based on the resource requests and applying, if necessary, the principle of a fair balance between the different disciplines.

• The Manned Space Programme Board, composed of Delegates from the ESA Member States participating in the International Space Station Programme, will be the final approving authority for the European payload complement for flight on this opportunity.

Evaluation Criteria

The following general criteria will be applied in the evaluation of proposals, refined as necessary for each discipline:

Scientific/Technological Criteria

• scientific or technological excellence
• relevance of conducting the experiment or the technology testing using the opportunity offered
• probability of achieving the desired results
• scientific or technological competence and experience of the proposing team
• compliance with the research objectives defined in Section 3, as applicable.

Technical, managerial and funding criteria

• technical compatibility with carrier interfaces and with system and mission constraints
• quality and soundness of engineering concepts
• adequacy of the proposal to ensure timely execution of experiment/instrument development and associated tasks
• clarity of definition of individual team members' contributions and responsibilities
• realism of the funding of PI/CO-I related responsibilities (e.g. instrument development/refurbishment, travel associated with investigations, experiment preparation, operational support, data evaluation).

Selection Schedule

Each proposer will be informed of the results of the evaluation of his or her proposal, final selection being foreseen in October 1997.