New grading scale and changes in the relevance assessment

The Research Council of Norway (RCN) is now removing the current relevance criterion as a separate character. This means that the referees will assess both the quality and relevance of the applications in the future, while the RCN case officers will check the application against the requirements and guidelines set out in the call. For applicants, this means that they no longer have to submit a separate attachment describing the application's relevance to the call, as has been the case in many calls until now.

"We are continuously working on the development of our schemes, and this change is part of our overall work on further developing the criteria for assessing applications. There are also several applicants who have called for changes to the relevance assessment, and we have taken this feedback with us in our work," says Mari Sundli Tveit, Chief Executive of the RCN.   

Introducing a six-part grading scale

The RCN is now also standardising the criteria on which applications are assessed, and is introducing the criteria Excellence, Impact and Implementation throughout all calls.

The grading scale will also be brought closer to the EU's research and innovation system by introducing the 0–5 scale used in Pillar 2 of Horizon Europe. However, we are making certain adjustments in how the grades are to be operationalised compared to the EU. The purpose of this change is to gain a more uniform understanding of the grading scale among the referees. 

The new characters are defined as follows:

• 5. The proposal addresses all relevant aspects of the criterion in an excellent manner. Compared with relevant work, it is among the top 15%.
• 4. The proposal addresses the criterion very well. Compared with relevant work, it is among the top 16–30%.
• 3. The proposal addresses the criterion well. There are some shortcomings, but they do not significantly impede the success of the proposed project.
• 2. The proposal broadly addresses the criterion, but there are weaknesses that could significantly impede the success of the proposed project.
• 1. The criterion is inadequately addressed.
• 0. The proposal fails to address the criterion or cannot be assessed due to missing or incomplete information.