BidShark
Pre-submission assessment · not a decision of the European Commission
Proposal Assessment Report
- Call
- HORIZON-CL5-2026-07-D1-01
- Programme
- Horizon Europe
- Type of action
- RIA
- Marking scheme
- V4.0 - 12.11.2025
- Assessed on
- August 12, 2026
- Reference
- demo-0000-0000-0000
Evaluation Result
10.50 / 15.00(Threshold: 10)
Below threshold on a criterion
A criterion under its own minimum stops a proposal whatever the total says.
The proposal clears the overall threshold at 10.5 of 15 but falls below the individual threshold on Impact, which means it would not be funded. The methodology is strong; the route from results to the outcomes the call names is asserted rather than evidenced.
What this assessment could not do
- The marking scheme used here was transcribed from V4.0 - 12.11.2025 but has not yet been confirmed against the current published form. Treat the scores as indicative.
- The panel did not reach agreement on impact: impact 3.0 vs red_team 1.5; the adjudicator decided.
Criterion 1 — Excellence
Score: 4.50 (Threshold: 3 / 5.00)
The following aspects have been taken into account:
- 1 -Clarity and pertinence of the project's objectives, and the extent to which the proposed work is ambitious and goes beyond the state of the art
- 2 -Soundness of the proposed methodology, including the underlying concepts, models, assumptions, interdisciplinary approaches, and the quality of open science practices
Open science practices are described in two sentences and do not say which datasets will be deposited or under what licence. This is a minor shortcoming.[p.9]
How this score was reached
One shortcoming and no significant weakness. The objectives are checkable and the methodology is specific about what would falsify it, which places this in the Very Good band rather than Good.
Score band. The proposal addresses the criterion very well, but a small number of shortcomings are present.
The objectives are stated in terms that can be checked against the work packages, and the methodology sets out what would have to hold for the approach to succeed. The treatment of open science practices is present but brief relative to the rest of the section.
A second opinion on Excellence, from someone who marks these for a living?
Criterion 2 — Impact
Score: 2.50 (Threshold: 3 / 5.00)below threshold
The following aspects have been taken into account:
- 1 -Credibility of the pathways to achieve the expected outcomes and impacts specified in the work programme, and the likely scale and significance of the contributions
- 2 -Suitability and quality of the measures to maximise expected outcomes and impacts, as set out in the dissemination and exploitation plan
The pathway to adoption by grid operators is stated as an expectation. No operator is named, no procurement or standardisation route is described, and no consortium partner is identified as holding that relationship. This is a significant weakness.[p.14]
The claimed 30% reduction in balancing cost is repeated three times without a stated baseline, so the magnitude of the benefit cannot be assessed. This is a shortcoming.[p.16]
How this score was reached
A significant weakness on the pathway aspect places this below threshold: the official bands put significant weaknesses at 2, and the supporting exploitation material is not strong enough to lift it past 3.
Score band. The proposal broadly addresses the criterion, but there are significant weaknesses.
The expected outcomes are correctly identified from the work programme. The route by which project results would reach the actors who could deliver those outcomes is asserted rather than established: no adopting organisation is named, and no mechanism is described by which the results would enter operational use.
What would have moved Impact above threshold?
Criterion 3 — Quality and efficiency of the implementation
Score: 3.50 (Threshold: 3 / 5.00)
The following aspects have been taken into account:
- 1 -Quality and effectiveness of the work plan, assessment of risks, and appropriateness of the effort assigned to work packages
- 2 -Capacity and role of each participant, and extent to which the consortium as a whole brings together the necessary expertise
WP3 carries 48 person-months for two integration tasks while WP4 carries 9 person-months for the full validation campaign, which is the work the results depend on. This is a shortcoming.[~p.22]
How this score was reached
Two shortcomings and no significant weakness. The work plan is coherent and the risks are project-specific, but the effort distribution is not defensible against the described work.
Score band. The proposal addresses the criterion well, but a number of shortcomings are present.
The work plan decomposes the objectives without obvious gaps and the risk register names risks specific to this project rather than generic project-management risks. The allocation of effort between work packages does not follow from the work described in them.
A second opinion on Quality and efficiency of the implementation, from someone who marks these for a living?
Scope and eligibility
Scope of the application
Status: No blocking issue found
Eligibility and admissibility
Status: Checked against the call
Not part of the marking exercise
What to change, in the order worth changing it
The only advisory part of this document. A real evaluation scores the proposal as submitted and may not recommend anything; these were derived from the findings after scoring was complete and feed back into no score.
- 01Fix firstImpactp.14
The pathway from the pilot results to adoption by grid operators is stated as an expectation rather than as a mechanism: no operator is named, no procurement or standards route is described, and no partner in the consortium has that relationship.
Assessed under Impact — Credibility of the pathways to achieve the expected outcomes and impacts specified in the work programme (criterion scored 2.5 of 5, threshold 3).
- 02ImportantImpactp.16
The claimed 30% reduction in balancing cost has no baseline. The figure appears in the abstract, in section 2.1 and in the work package description without a stated reference case.
Assessed under Impact — Suitability and quality of the measures to maximise expected outcomes and impacts (criterion scored 2.5 of 5, threshold 3).
- 03Worth doingQuality and efficiency of the implementation~p.22
WP3 carries 48 person-months against a description covering two integration tasks, while WP4 carries 9 person-months for the entire validation campaign.
Assessed under Quality and efficiency of the implementation — Quality and effectiveness of the work plan, assessment of risks, and appropriateness of the effort assigned to work packages, and the resources overall (criterion scored 3.5 of 5, threshold 3).
The panel
Six evaluators, read separately
Each read the proposal through a different professional lens and scored independently, before seeing what the others found. Where they differ, that difference is information rather than error.
Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Education at a large public university.
Climate systems professor at a technical university.
Technology-transfer and innovation specialist working for a large applied-research organisation.
Senior project director with two decades of consortium delivery experience.
SME digital-transformation specialist working with regional innovation programmes.
Cybersecurity entrepreneur and former national cyber-policy adviser.
Where they disagreed
The arguments, kept in full
Each material disagreement was put back to both evaluators with the other's evidence visible. Either could revise or hold. Both positions are here because a report that hid the dissent would be claiming a unanimity it did not have.
Atlas: their reading of section 2.1 is fair, but the letters of support in the annex do establish contact with two operators. I hold at 3.0 — the pathway is weak rather than absent.
Northstar: a letter of support is not an adoption mechanism, and neither operator is a partner or has committed to anything. I maintain 1.5.
Not resolved — the adjudicator decided
The evaluators maintained their positions; the senior adjudicator decided.
The call
Requirement by requirement
Every requirement compiled from the call document, in the Commission's own wording, with where your proposal addresses it.
| Requirement | Category | Status | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| RFP-OUTCOME-002 Projects must contribute to improved observation capability for Essential Climate Variables at regional scale. mandatory | expected outcome | not addressed | — |
| RFP-SCOPE-001 Proposals must address at least two Essential Climate Variables. mandatory | scope | addressed | — |
| RFP-BUDGET-001 The maximum duration of projects under this topic is 48 months. mandatory | budget and duration | addressed | — |
The document itself
Found by reading, not by judging
A deterministic check of the submitted file. No model was involved and none of it moved a score — every item is either present in the document or it is not. It is here because all of it is cheap to fix and every one of these would be visible to a real evaluator.
Left unfilled
2Template text still in the submitted document. An evaluator reads this as a draft.
- '[NAME, TITLE]' — unfilled bracketed instruction×6§3.2p.21
- 'TBC' — unfilled TBC×2§3.4p.24
Referred to but never defined
1A deliverable, milestone, work package or task cited somewhere and defined nowhere — usually the seam between two sections written separately.
- D4.3 is referred to but never defined in the proposal§2.2p.16
Acronyms never expanded
1Used repeatedly without ever being spelled out. Each is listed once, with how often it appears.
- CDMF is used 14 times and never expanded×14§1.2p.6