Antagonistic threats challenging societal security in the Nordic and Baltic countries – guidance for experts assessing proposals

Thank you for your commitment to participate in the assessment of the full proposals submitted to this call. We trust that you will find this work both interesting and rewarding. 

The deadline for submitting your assessments is October 15th, 2025.

Proposals will be accessible from July 9th, 2025 via the NordForsk application portal and the restricted teams folders.

‎Emails from no-reply@nordforsk.org will notify you of the proposals assigned to you. Please log in to the NordForsk application portal as soon as possible to ensure you have access to applications and the assessment form.

Some of the assigned proposals may not be fully aligned with your area of expertise. Nonetheless, we ask you to provide your opinion as general expert in the research area and/or as an informed professional.

Before you start

Throughout the assessment process, expert must adhere to NordForsk’s guidelines on impartiality and principles for assessment.

All application materials are confidential and must not be disclosed. Experts must not seek contact with applicants during the review process. Confidentiality must be maintained even after the review process has been concluded.

After the review process has been concluded, names of the experts involved in the assessment will be published. However, individual grading and written explanations made before the panel meeting will not be shared with applicants. The panel’s collective written explanation of the overall grade will be made available to the individual applicants.

Generative AI tools must not be used to assess applications, nor should factual contents or the applicants’ personal data be disseminated. Any other use of AI tools must align with ethical, responsible, and legal standards and requirements. Experts are encouraged to consult the European Commission’s Living guidelines on the responsible use of generative AI in research.

Assessor responsibilities

Each proposal will be evaluated by a minimum of three scientific experts: one principal assessor, and two assessors. In addition to the experts participating in the panel, some proposals might require specific additional expertise and will also be assessed by individual assessors.

Principle assessor
Reads the proposal material in depth, provides justifications for each grade and proposes an overall grade with a brief rationale. In the panel meeting, the principle assessor briefly introduces the proposal for discussion. Principle assessors are responsible for editing, finalising and submitting the panel’s written statement on the overall grade after the meetings within October 24th. If the proposal has been assessed by an individual expert, the principal assessor is responsible for presenting the grading and statement from the individual expert to the panel.

Assessor
Reads the proposal material in depth, provides justifications for each grade, and proposes an overall grade with a brief rationale. Contributes to discussions of the proposal’s strengths and weaknesses and assists in drafting the panel’s written statement. They shall give input to the panels written statement.

Individual experts
In addition to the experts participating in the panel, some proposals may require specific additional expertise. Individual assessors will read the proposal material in depth, provide justifications for each grade and proposes an overall grade with a brief rationale.

Reader
Panels are led by a chair appointed by NordForsk. The chair reads all proposals allocated to the panel to get an overview of the portfolio.

Overview of assessment process

NordForsk applies a scale of grades from one to seven.

Grade
7	Outstanding: Exceptionally strong application with negligible weaknesses. The proposal makes an outstanding contribution to the aims of the initiative.
6	Excellent: Very strong application with negligible weaknesses. The proposal makes an excellent contribution to the aims of the initiative.
5	Very good: Very good application with minor weaknesses. The proposal makes a significant contribution to the aims of the initiative.
4	Good: Good applications with some weaknesses. The proposal makes a good contribution to the aims of the initiative.
3	Fair: Some strengths, but also moderate weaknesses. The proposal makes some contribution to the aims of the initiative.
2	Weak: A few strengths, but with at least one major weakness or several mi nor weaknesses. The proposal I makes limited contribution to the aims of the initiative.
1	Poor: Very few strengths, several major weaknesses. The proposal makes little or no contribution to the aims of the initiative.

For each criterion, experts must provide a grade and a short explanation of their assessment. Explanations are for internal use only and should be concise, addressing the key strengths and weaknesses. Referring to the call text is encouraged.

In the assessment form there is a pulldown menu for the grade and a text box for each criterion.

The output from the panel meeting is consensus on overall grade and the panel's written statement.

The five criteria

Each criterion includes guiding questions to help assess the proposal and assign a grade.

We suggest beginning with criterion 2. Scientific quality, followed by Quality of the research team, Feasibility, and Communication and knowledge exchange.

The two criteria, Nordic-Baltic added value and Contribution to call aims will be easier to grade when you have a comprehensive overview of the proposal, we therefor recommend to grade those at last.

The assessment portal auto-saves your input (only with a stable internet connection). Clicking on “continue workflow” at the top of the review form, will submit your assessment.

Contribution til call aims

The extent to which the proposed research is appropriate to the aims of the call

Scientific quality

Clarity of objectives, research questions/hypotheses and project description

Soundness and credibility of concept and methodology (including, when relevant, stakeholder involvement, consideration of the gender dimension in research content)

Potential to develop new knowledge beyond current state-of-the-art

Ethical considerations and how these will be handled

Credibility of expected research results, societal relevance, and potential for impact

Potential of the proposed research to feed into policy and practice in the Nordic or Nordic-Baltic countries

Nordic-Baltic Added Value

Potential to create benefits for the Nordic and Nordic-Baltic research ecosystem (such as enhancing scientific excellence; achieving necessary critical mass and/or expertise; building competence; supporting mobility and networking; facilitating early-career researchers’ opportunities for building lasting Nordic and Baltic networks and future international careers; enhancing cost-effectiveness by sharing data and research infrastructure; developing or utilising particular Nordic and Baltic strengths or expertise, phenomena or data)

Potential to create benefits for Nordic and Baltic societies (such as addressing needs that are particular to the Nordic and Baltics countries considering similar societal structures, similar challenges concerning climate and biodiversity, shared cultural heritage; providing a strong and quality-assured knowledge base for policymakers, practitioners and other stakeholders; or creating new innovations, patents or solutions that help enhance development and co-operation in the Nordic and Baltic regions)

Quality of the research team

Experience, expertise and merits in relation to delivering the proposed research, including participation of early career researchers

Complementarity of the participants and extent to which the consortium as whole brings together the necessary expertise, including how the consortium partners jointly contribute to the project

Feasibility

Quality and effectiveness of the work plan, including extent to which financial and personnel resources are appropriately assigned in line with the objectives and deliverables

Appropriateness of the management structures and procedures, including risk management

Communication and knowledge exchange

Quality of plans for communication, dissemination and knowledge exchange including the extent to which such activities align with project objectives and target relevant stakeholders

Quality of open science practices in terms of sharing research data and outputs

Overall grade

‎Based on the assessments of the five grades above, what is your suggested overall grade for the proposal.

Panel meeting

The panel meeting aims to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each proposal and based the discussion, decide the panels overall grade, supported by a collective written statement summarising strengths and weaknesses. The panel meetings will be chaired by an expert engaged by NordForsk.

The expert panel will convene in one-day digital meetings on October 20-21st 2025. Preparatory material will be accessible before the meeting.

In preparation of the evaluation task and panel meeting, short information meetings are organized on September 3 and 4, both from 10:00-10:45- CEST. Please participate in one of them.

Links to the meetings:

3^rd September 10:00-10:45 CEST

4^th September 10:00-10:45 CEST

Remuneration

Remuneration will be provided during November 2025. NOK 2000 per proposal as a Principal Assessor, NOK 1600 per proposal as an Assessor, and NOK 5000 for the one-day digital panel meeting. Please provide the exact name on the bank account in the honorarium form below.

You will recieve a secure link to fill out with your payment details once the panel meetings and the written statements have been completed.