Admissibility and eligibility check

Evaluation

Special procedures

Grant preparation  

Grant signature

Complaints about proposal rejection

Complaints about proposal rejection

If you believe that your proposal rejection was based on a flaw in the selection procedure, you can submit a complaint (following the deadlines and procedures set out in the evaluation result letter).

Generally, the means of redress are the following:

• request for admissibility/eligibility or evaluation review (redress review) — within 30 days of receiving the letter
• for rejection decisions by EU executive agencies: request for review of legality under Article 22 of Regulation 58/2003 — within 1 month of receiving the letter
• action for annulment under Article 263 TFEU — within 2 months of receiving the letter.

Please note that notifications which have not been opened within 10 days after sending are considered to have been accessed and that the deadlines will be counted from opening/access (see Portal Terms and Conditions).

Please do NOT make do NOT take more than one formal action complaint at a time. If you would like to use several of the means of redress means, start with the administrative review procedures first in the order set out above (e.g. first redress, then Article 22 and then Article 22). Wait for the reply to your first complaint, and then take further action against that decision — if you continue to disagree263) and always wait for our reply before starting a new complaint. We will count the deadlines for further action complaints always as from when you receive the reply to the previous complaint.

Please note that notifications which have not been opened within 10 days after sending are considered to have been accessed and that deadlines will be counted from opening/access (see Portal Terms and Conditions ).

When filing a complaint, pay attention to who took the formal decision and that complaints must be brought against that service. If the decision was taken by an EU agency or other EU body, the complaint must be directed against that agency/body (NOT the European Commission).

Please note that you can also address complaints to the European Ombudsman , if you believe that there has been maladministration on our part — within 2 years after you became aware of it AND after you have used all the available means of administrative redress (admissibility/eligibility review, evaluation review and Article 22 request, if available) or at least contacted us about the matter.

Redress review

Redress requests must be related to the evaluation process or admissibility/eligibility check.

one.

Complaints will be subject to the following conditions:

• Complaints must be limited to procedural aspects, not on the merits of the proposal. The complaint must relate to the evaluation procedure, admissibility or eligibility checks and demonstrate a procedural irregularity, factual error, manifest error of assessment or

• abuse of powers (e.g. lack of coherence between scores and comments, lack or inadequate reasoning of the conclusions, the existence of a conflict of interests, exceeding the limits of discretion, etc). Mere repetitions of

• the content of the proposal or disagreements with the result or

• reasoning of the evaluation will

• not be considered.

• Only one request for review per proposal will be considered. The request cannot refer to the evaluation of proposals submitted by other applicants or under different or previous calls.
• Review requests will not automatically trigger a re-evaluation of

• the proposal. Re-evaluations will only be carried out if

• the complaint demonstrates that the procedural irregularity, factual error, manifest error of assessment or abuse of powers affects the decision on whether to fund

• the proposal. Thus, for example,

• a problem relating to one

• of the evaluation criteria will not lead to a re-evaluation

• if, even by adding the maximum points

• under this criterion, the final score of the proposal would still

• remain below the threshold for funding

• .

• Re-evaluations will be

• made on the

• proposal as

• it was originally submitted; no additional information

• will be admitted. Re-evaluations will be partial (limited to the criterion affected by the error) or full (when the

• whole evaluation has been recognized as flawed)

— depending on the case. They may be assigned to the same evaluation panel or a new one, depending on

the internal procedures of the Granting Authority.

• The score following a re-evaluation

• may be lower than the original score.

Only one request for review per proposal will be considered.

• All requests for review will be treated as confidential.

Please pay attention to who took the formal decision and who the complaint must be addressed to. If a decision was taken by an EU executive agency or other EU body, both redress review and applications for annulment must be directed against that agency/body (NOT against the European Commission). Only Article 22 complaints must be addressed to the respective Directorate-General of the Commission (parent DG of the executive agency).
In case you consider that there has been maladministration on our part, you can also address a complaint to the European Ombudsman — within 2 years after you became aware of it AND after having used all the means of administrative redress available (redress and Article 22 request, if any).