The evaluation regulations define a conflict of interest in order to ensure credible and authoritative evaluation process. For the purposes of the evaluation a reviewer or a member of an Expert Panel is deemed to be in conflict of interest in particular if he or she:
Was involved in the preparation of, or is an author or co-author of, outputs that he or she should review;
Has close family relations or other close personal relations to a person that is author or co-author of the reviewed outputs, or holds a management posi-tion in the relevant unit;
Is in any manner involved in the management of the relevant unit;
Has an employment contract at the unit he or she should evaluate or an agreement to produce research at the unit he or she should evaluate;
Has or had a relationship of research rivalry or professional hostility with any of the authors of outputs that are reviewed or with a person in a management position in the unit that is assessed;
Is or was in the past the mentor of the author of outputs that are being reviewed or was or is mentored by him.
Reviewers and members of Expert Panels are supposed to disclose any potential conflict of interest. Based on notification from the reviewer, Expert Panel member, or from a unit, the Research Evaluation Board decides whether there is a situation that could compromise the capacity of the reviewer or member of Expert Panel to independently assess the unit or review its outputs. If it turns out during the evaluation that a reviewer or a member of an Expert Panel intentionally failed to disclose a conflict of interest, he or she will be immediately excluded from the evaluation by the Research Evaluation Board and the recommendations or opinions in which he or she was involved shall be subject to review.