ReseaRch Quality assuRance foR the futuRe a ... - Lund University

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made in a close and continued interaction with the faculty leaderships.
Only panellists working outside Sweden were appointed and each panel
consisted of 4–9 experts. In all 117 experts were engaged (incl. external
advisors requested by some panels). The Panellists and Panel Chairs were
appointed by the Vice-Chancellor. A Main Chair was also appointed.
The evaluation procedure included a site visit by the Panel Chairs and
Vice Chairs (appointed by the panels) to Lund 9–13 June. Before that
each panel met one to two days in April–May, meetings many of which
were organized in Copenhagen. Some panels met in London, Paris or
Helsinki. One major reason for adopting this procedure rather than site
visits of all panellists, was to make the evaluation work of the invited
experts less time consuming.
The departments prepared their final reports during January and February
2008 during which time the other data material was also finalized. All
reports and all additional material were made available to all evaluators at
a Project Portal and each evaluator was also supported with all material
referring to their panel via e-mail in March or later.
During the panel meetings, the evaluators were given a standardized
presentation by a representative from the RQ08 project office, including
descriptions of the Swedish university system, national and local research
resource allocation systems, types of university positions and other basic
information. Then, the panels discussed the Terms of Reference (Annex 4)
and agreed on their working procedure. They also discussed their general
views on the background material available and the departments under
review. Many panels decided they needed more material on which to base
their evaluation work, material that was supported by the departments
after requests from the project office. Possible non-attending members
of the panels were normally connected via telephone. During all panel
meetings, possible conflicts of interests were raised, discussed and handled.
In some cases they were also discussed in the Project Steering Group.
Preliminary reports were prepared in time for the site visit of the panel
chairs and vice-chairs and in these reports questions to handle during the
site visit were also raised. During the site visit (June 9–13), meetings were
organized with the university leadership (common session) and faculty
leaderships (joint session with a few panels). Each panel met the departmental
chairs as well as representatives for young and senior researchers.
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