Terms and Conditions

1. Introduction

These terms and conditions are binding rules applying to the use of the Open Call Platform (OCP), operated and provided by the Open Call Team at TUM for the Users.

The purpose of the OCP is to provide a platform supporting the Proposal and evaluation procedure, as well as to support the monitoring of the progress and performance of granted projects

m g.) On the OCP, Calls are opened and the official documents (i.e. guide for applicants, proposal template, call text, any other supportive documents) are published by a Hosting Consortium. Prospective applicants can submit a proposal in response to an open call via the OCP. To submit a proposal, the prospective applicants should register on the OCP, fill the web form and upload the proposal document(s). The document(s) submitted will be evaluated by Evaluators. The Evaluators, who are assigned to a specific proposal, are experts in the topic addressed by the open call. Evaluators need to register on the OCP as well. The evaluation is carried out according to the procedure described in these terms and conditions and optionally the Call Documents.

The use of the OCP is free of charge for the prospective applicants and Evaluators.

By using the OCP, you confirm that you have read and understood each of the terms and conditions, and agree that these govern your use of the OCP. If you register on the OCP, submit any material to the OCP or use any of our services, we will ask you to expressly agree to these terms and conditions.

2. Registration of a user account / User account

In order to use the OCP a user must register for the OCP, taking into account the technical and organizational requirements. In particular, a registration is required in order to submit a proposal to the OCP and to act as an Evaluator.

For the registration we will request a list of personal data, including your contact details (i.e. name, email address, phone number) and information about their employer.

Additionally, for Evaluators we also request keywords and Curriculum Vitae (CV) in order to identify their area of expertise (see also section “Selection of Evaluators”).

The Open Call Team at TUM will check the accuracy and validity of the information in the CV. The Open Call Team at Team can repeat this verification at any time.

To complete the registration, the user should activate the account by clicking the activation link sent automatically to her/his email address.

Once the account is activated, the user gets access to the OCP and is entitled to use the OCP in accordance with the technical and organizational requirements.

Incorrect or incomplete information as well as missing explanations entitle us to refuse registration or to terminate the user relationship immediately. The operator is therefore entitled to verify the information provided by the user.

Further information on data protection can be found in our privacy policy.

3. Proposal submission

For any given proposal, one coordinator acts as the main point of contact between the proposing consortium and us (open call team).

After registration you may submit a proposal.

For a successful submission of a proposal the coordinator must enter the mandatory information, usually:

• Proposing consortium, including legal name of the organizations, address, etc.
• At least one Representative for each institution of the proposing consortium. If the representative does not have an active user account for the OCP he/she will also receive a link to activate the profile created for them.
• Proposal data (e.g. proposal name and acronym, requested budget)
• A number of keywords identifying the topic of the Proposal (See also Evaluator selection process).
• Proposal document(s)

All persons involved and identified in a Proposal (e.g. the representative) will receive an email to activate the account provided their email address is not linked to an account, yet.

The Coordinator of the proposing consortium is responsible for the timely submission of proposals as determined in the call documents, eeShe/he is allowed to edit the proposal before the deadline and he/she will be notified accordingly via email. There is no limit to the number of edits.

Upon any submission, the latest version is to be regarded as the submitted version.

The preparation of proposals is on the proposers’ own authority. We do not check the contents for their accuracy nor do we point out any inaccuracies. After submission of a proposal the coordinator of the proposing consortium and representative(s) can view the proposal and download the contained file(s) (i.e. any proposal documents and an excel export of the requested budget). In addition, an acknowledgement of receipt will be send to the coordinator of the proposing consortium. This does not imply that a proposal has been accepted as admissible nor eligible for evaluation.

The acknowledgement of receipt provides basic information about the submission. Please note that the information contained in the email is for future reference. If the provided information is not correct or you did not receive it, please contact us within 24 hours subsequent to the submission on the OCP. Later objections will be not taken into account.

After the call deadline, a change of the proposal is no longer possible

4. Evaluators

The duty of an Evaluator is to evaluate the proposal(s) and write a consensus report if requested.

a. Requirements for Evaluator and selection of Evaluators

Experts of different disciplines can register for the OCP to act as an Evaluator (see section “Registration of a user account”).

In addition to their registration, experts who wish to work as Evaluators must provide keywords describing his/her field of expertise and upload their CV. He/She is obliged to keep the chosen keywords confidential.

For a successful selection the applying Evaluator has to be an independent [external] experts with no conflict of interest (CoI) with the proposing consortium.

The CV uploaded by the evaluator will be used to review the qualification of the expert, and to verify whether CoI exists between the evaluator and the proposing consortium.

The explanation of the CoI can be found in the call documents.

For privacy reasons and to ensure a completely anonymous and independent evaluation, the OCP assigns an ID number to each Evaluator, so that Evaluators cannot see each other’s names.

To select the Evaluators, the OCP automatically matches the keywords selected by the Coordinator in the proposal with the ones of the Evaluators’ profile. Based on the number of matches and on the CV, the Evaluators are selected for each proposal.

In case the result of the validation is negative, the Evaluator(s) will be notified accordingly.

b. Contracting of Evaluators

Once an Evaluator has been selected, she/he will receive an email with the contracting documents. The Evaluator is obliged to upload the completed/signed contracting documents to the OCP. If the documents are not received within 5 working days, we reserve the right to select another Evaluator.

As soon as the contracting documents have been uploaded and validated, the Evaluator(s) can access the proposals he/she have/has been assigned to. He/she/ receive/s a corresponding notification.

All the documents and information shared with the Evaluators have to remain confidential. Sharing this information is not allowed. All data stored outside the OCP have to be deleted after the completion of the evaluation procedure.

Although the call procedure is based on EC regulations, contracts concluded between the TUM and Evaluators are based on German law and regulations, since the TUM is a German entity.

Any travel expenses (e.g. participation at the physical panel meeting) will be reimbursed according to Bavarian Travel Expenses Act [Bayerisches Reisekostengesetz].

Payments are only being made as agreed upon in the signed contracts. Other reimbursements are not possible. Payments are only made via Bank transfer.

c. Deviating regulations in the Call documents

Clause 4. a and 4. b are only valid if not otherwise specified in the Open Call Documents.

5. Proposal evaluation

a. General Information

Each proposal submitted by a prospective applicant(s) is evaluated by at least 2 evaluators. One of them is nominated to write the consensus report (Rapporteur).

Before the evaluation, the proposals will be checked for their admissibility and eligibility. Proposals that do not comply with the admissibility and eligibility requirements set out in the call documents can be excluded from the evaluation (and funding).

b. Remote evaluation phase

The Evaluators submit their evaluation reports for each proposal through the evaluation page of the OCP.

Each evaluation rates the proposal on a number of previously by the Call Documents determined criteria with points. An overview of the criteria and their weighting can be found in the call documents.

After all evaluations for a proposal have been submitted by the Evaluators, they have to discuss via the discussion section of the OCP to reach a consensus.

For each proposal, the Evaluator assigned as Rapporteur submits via the OCP a report about the consensus (consensus report).

If necessary (e.g. when a consensus is not reachable and or the evaluations differ substantially) the Rapporteur is instructed to request from the hosting consortium an involvement of an additional independent Evaluator, who is chosen accordingly as described above in sec. 4.a,

Once all the proposals are evaluated, the OCP procures a ranked list of Proposals to which all Evaluators and the Open Call Team at TUM have access.

c. Panel meeting

The Panel Meeting takes place after completion of the remote evaluation phase.
The panelists attending the panel meeting have been Evaluators within the Call. They will be selected according to their availability and selected according to their skills / expertise in the case the panel has to cover a specific set of skills / expertise. The number of panelists differs from Call to Call and depends on the number of proposals to be discussed in the panel meeting.

The objective of the Panel meeting is to ensure consistency of assessments / scores.

The panelists have to agree by simple majority on adjusted scores or comments that differ from the ones given in the consensus reports.

The final ranking list of the proposals is obtained at the end of the meeting as the result of the meeting.

d. Final ranking list and Funding

The final ranking list is the base document for the distribution of funding.

The Open Call Team at TUM is not responsible for the final ranking list/funding distribution. All Evaluators are independent and only express their own evaluation.

However, the Open Call Team at TUM preserve the rights to:

• exclude proposals from funding that have scored below a certain threshold, that is published in the Call Document, and
• reduce the number of selected proposals according to the available budget.

After the Open Call Team at TUM has checked and confirmed the final ranking list, the Coordinators are informed about the result.

A partner of the Hosting Consortium will provide a contract to the selected Proposing Consortium.

6. Obligations of the User

Every user of the OCP (e. g. Evaluators, Coordinators, Representatives) is obliged to use the services of the OCP properly and to comply with the recognized principles of data security.

The user is obliged to keep his/her user data/user- account up-to-date.

The user will not transfer his/her user account to third parties. The user is responsible for the secrecy and security of his/her password. The user is also responsible for the fact that devices on which he/she has stored his/her password are not used by third parties.

The user refrains from any abusive use of the access authorization to the OCP, in particular he/she does not pass on the documents made available through the OPC to unauthorized third parties.

The user is obligated to use the services of the OCP not improperly and sole in accordance with the applicable national and international laws and regulations. In particular he/she is obliged not to infringe any rights of third parties, for example, personal rights, copyrights, trademarks, names and other commercial Property rights of third parties.

The user is obliged to promptly answer system inquiries and requests of the OCP teams at TUM, which serve the well-functioning and timely handling of the OCP procedures. The Coordinator must always be reachable via his registered email address: As Coordinator please make sure you will read your emails.

The user has to check all files that he/she uploads to the platform previously with an up-to-date test program for viruses, trojans and similar components affecting the integrity of files and / or computer hardware and software. The user uploads only files and data that are free of such malware. We will inform the user immediately if we discover such data. If such data compromises the integrity of OCP's services or third-party facilities, we may also delete such information without prior notice to the user if the risk cannot otherwise be remedied with reasonable financial and time expenditure.

If the user violates these terms and conditions not only slightly, the operator of the OCP is entitled to terminate the user relationship without notice.

7. Technical requirements / Limitation of service

Users of the OCP need an internet-capable terminal device with a current web browser. The user alone is responsible for creating and maintaining the conditions for using the OCP. These include in particular the connection to the Internet.

The operator may adapt the facilities of the platform at any time with respect to the state of the art and the legal requirements. For this purpose, the OCP can be temporarily taken out of service. Scheduled periods of maintenance and possible disabilities will be announced if possible.

Due to the structure of the internet, the operator of the OCP has no influence on the Data transfer and therefore assumes no responsibility for the availability, reliability and quality of telecommunication networks, data networks and technical equipment of third parties.

Performance disruptions due to force majeure are not the responsibility and liability of the operator.

The operator of the OCP may block or restrict access to the OCP if the OCP or its electronic devices are technically disrupted, overloaded or threaten to interfere or overload. If a user detects a malfunction, he/she immediately contacts the operators of the OCP.

The use of services of OCP may be modified or discontinued at any time without notice. In this case the user has no claim for damages, reimbursement or damages.

8. Complaint

Any request for redress must be submitted by the Coordinator to the official call email address within 30 days of the announcement of the result. The official email address is available on the documents and/or OCP.

9. Term, Completion and Termination

The registration and the agreement hereby agreed has no time limit.

The user can change the user relationship by request the deletion of his/her user account. To request the deletion of an account the user needs to contact the OCP team. Pr.

We are entitled, under the conditions described in these conditions, to terminate the usage relationship. In addition, termination without notice is possible in particular

• in the case of inacceptable behavior against other users
• in the case of inappropriate usage of the platform
• in the case of non-compliance with contracted obligations

10. Liability and Responsibility

The liability of the operator is limited to intent and gross negligence within the framework of statutory regulations.

The operator of the OCP/The Open Call Team at TUM assumes no liability for the availability of the OCP and for failures, interruptions, malfunctions or termination of the OCP.

The operator of the OCP/The Open Call Team at TUM is not liable in case of technical problem and/or data loss.

The operator of the OCP/The Open Call Team at TUM assumes no responsibility for the accuracy or content of contents generated by the users.

The operator of the OCP is/ The Open Call Team at TUM are not responsible and liable for mistakes in the proposal documents.

11. Help desk

In the case of malfunctions and questions regarding the use of the OCP, please contact the contact address provided on the call page. For general problems the OCP help desk can be contacted free of charge at otrs@otrs.www6.in.tum.de.

12. Miscellaneous

Additional agreements to these terms and conditions require the written form.

The place of jurisdiction is, as far as permissible, Munich. The law of the Federal Republic of Germany is applicable

If single clauses of these terms and conditions are ineffective, the validity of the remaining clauses remains unaffected.

If a selection of further contracts (e.g. project grants or evaluator assignments) has been based on conscious misinformation TUM can cancel these contracts without notice or compensation und claim back all payments already made.

We may revise these terms and conditions as far as essential regulations are not affected and it is necessary to adapt to developments. We revision is made by posting the revised terms on the website. The revised terms take effect as of the date posted. Changes to the terms and conditions will be communicated to you after your registration by email.