Selection and decision process

Basic Process

Formal eligibility check by WWTF

WWTF office will conduct a formal eligibility check of the proposal based on the criteria outlined in the WWTF Funding Guideline, and this document. This includes:

• The number of allowed submissions per institutions has not been exceeded. 
• All required signatures (institutional authorization) are complete and valid.
• All applications comply with good scientific practice (plagiarism check with software).
• Submission of the same or highly similar ideas to other funding organizations, which must be explicitly declared in the full proposal. Application for funding at other organizations is permitted and will not impact the evaluation. In case of funding, applicants will be asked by which organization they wish to be funded, as double funding is not permitted by WWTF.

Substantial deficiencies and missing sections in the application will lead to the exclusion of the application from further evaluation and rejection on formal grounds. The strict timeline of the call does not allow for proposals to be sent back to the applicants for amendments.

Selection by the Call Jury

The core element of WWTF’s decision-making processes is the call jury mandated to make a funding recommendation to the WWTF boards. 

• Depending on the call (size, scope etc) the jury is comprised of 6-10 national and international experts. Please note, due to the nature of the call (Supplementary Measure; data infrastructure contexts), national experts will be part of the jury. 
• Jury members are selected by WWTF according to their expertise in the call topic. They have no known conflict of interest prior to the submission deadline. 
• The names of jury members will be published on the WWTF website after the WWTF Board of Directors finalize the formal funding decision.   

The decision will be taken by the jury only. No external reviews will be sought. 

Basis for the decision-making is the individual assessment of the proposals ahead of the jury meeting by the jury members and a two-day selection meeting. The jury provides funding recommendation of projects to the WWTF Boards.

The jury may recommend budget cuts as well as additional conditions for funding.

Formal funding decision by WWTF Boards

The jury recommendation will be formally confirmed first by the WWTF Advisory Board and then approved by the WWTF Board of Directors.

Notification of Applications

• Applicants will be promptly informed about the decision. 
• Unsuccessful applicants will receive a short statement by the jury explaining the main reasons why the project was not selected for funding.

Please note that WWTF does not allow the opportunity for rebuttals to either recommendations by the jury panel or decisions by the WWTF Board of Directors.