Depending on the position, candidates need to be evaluated depending on certain criteria.

In academia, recruiting decisions are often based on so called scientific excellence (see “Scientific excellence”). However, scientific projects like the HBP and EBRAINS involve far more Consortium members than purely scientific staff for whom the debate on scientific excellence is formative. Employees such as technicians or admin staff also contribute extensively to the success of the endeavour.

This raises the question how to measure excellence for the different positions in the project.

Moore et al. (2017) go further and question the concept of excellence in general and if it actually means anything. They ask:

“Does this pervasive narrative of ‘excellence’ do any good?”
(Moore et al., 2017: 1).

According to them,

“’excellence’ […] is a flexible term that operates in a variety of contexts across a range of registers”
(Moore et al., 2017: 2).

For this reason, they argue for an alternative rhetoric based on soundness and capacity-building to enable a more pluralistic approach to the distribution of resources and credit. For academia, this would mean a shift from evaluation of outputs to evaluation of practice:

“This focus on the practice of research, including its communications, rather than the performance of success at research can also be aligned with developing narratives of Responsible Research and Innovation (see “Responsible Research & Innovation (RRI)”) and public engagement”
(Moore et al., 2017: 10).

However, as excellence is still regarded important in scientific contexts, it is essential that the criteria for excellence to evaluate candidates for open positions are fixed in advance.

The template above aims to provide some criteria with description as guiding elements for the evaluation of a candidate. Depending on the open position, not all criteria might be applicable. Evaluators are thus invited to use this template as guidance for further development depending on the criteria for the position in charge.