Qualification Rules

The Elsass Foundation applies to the rules and principled codes of conduct governing impartiality described below. These are based on the Danish Public Administration Act’s chapter 2 on impartiality. The impartiality rules are developed to ensure a balanced presence of professional expertise, transparency and impartiality in decisions.

The rules apply to members of the Elsass Foundation Research Prize committee.

Disqualification

A person will be disqualified from the decision-making process if:

• said person has economic interest in the outcome of said case
• said person has a familial relationship to the applicant, i.e. spouse/cohabiting partner (current and former), relation or relation by marriage in direct line of ascent or descent, close collateral relation such as a niece or nephew.
• said person collaborates or has collaborated with the applicant within the past five years
• said person is employed in a public institution (such as a faculty or hospital) in which his/her superior is the applicant, or if said person has supervisory responsibility for the applicant.
• the applicant is in a research team of which said person is a member or has been a member within the past five years
• any other circumstances exist that put said person’s impartiality in question

A person who is disqualified, or whose impartiality in a specific case may be in doubt, is required to notify the Elsass Foundation. Non-compliance will be considered a breach of the rules governing impartiality.

Guidelines in the event of disqualification

A person who is disqualified from the decision-making process in a specific case may neither make a decision, participate in the decision nor participate in any part of the case-handling process.

If a person has a potential conflict of interest or if there is any doubt about the impartiality of said person in a given situation, the chairman of the relevant panel or review board will decide, together with the administration, whether the conflict of interest should result in disqualification.

Consequences of breach of the rules governing impartiality

The following consequences will apply if breach of the Elsass Foundation’s impartiality rules can be proven:

• The evaluation of the application shall be repeated and processed by the relevant panel or review board without the influence of disqualified members in the same way as if the impartiality rules had not been breached
• All cases of breach or circumvention of the impartiality rules shall be reported to the Foundation’s Board of Trustees which will take charge of the further processing of the case.