Chapter 7. Proposal evaluation and selection

The proposals received by the submission deadline at the Herschel Science Centre (HSC) will be organised into four broad science topical areas based on the choice of 'science category' made by the proposer on the proposal coversheet. These Phase 1 proposals will then be made available to the Herschel Observing Time Allocation Committee (HOTAC) for evaluation.

The HOTAC will consist of eight Panels plus the HOTAC Chair, two Panels each representing the four science topical areas as follows:

By having broad science topics and parallel Panels per topic the HOTAC will be able to minimise potential institutional, professional and personal conflicts of interest. All members of the HOTAC Panels will have access to all the proposals electronically using the Herschel Proposal Handling System (PHS) tool.

The HOTAC will evaluate and recommend proposals for execution based on the following criteria:

During this process the HSC will assist HOTAC in the technical evaluation of the proposals, in particular regarding feasibility and duplication issues. After a period of individual study and grading of the proposals, the HOTAC members will hold a formal meeting (to be held on 8-11 November 2011), where they will formulate a consolidated recommendation regarding which proposals be awarded observing time and how much. The ESA Director of Science and Robotic Exploration will receive the HOTAC recommendations and take the final decision.

The PI's of all proposals will be informed by electronic mail of the results of the proposal evaluation process. These results, as well as the comments made by the HOTAC during the meeting, will also be made available to the users through the Herschel PHS web pages where they (and their co-users) will be able to see the status of their proposals and AORs at any moment during the mission (submitted/accepted/rejected/scheduled/ executed/etc). Acceptance of a proposal may be conditional to e.g. modification/reduction of targets and/or observing modes in Phase 2. It has to be noted here that -for operational reasons- no guarantees can be given that any particular AOR will, in fact, be executed, although every attempt will be made to complete all observations requests in accepted proposals.

The list of accepted proposals will be announced by the HSC through the web together with the overall statistics on the response and the results of the call. The information to be made public will contain only the following items:

The remainder of the approved proposals, and the entirety of the proposals not selected, shall remain confidential to the extent allowed by the review process.