Conflict of Interest
If you are a member of a committee reviewing applications for a Nordita position, and if you suspect that there might be a conflict of interest in any way in relation to some candidate, you must discuss this with the other committee members. Conflicts of interest could arise when, e.g., you are supervisor, collaborator or partner to the candidate.
Candidates must be able to trust that the evaluation process is carried out fairly and objectively. To ensure this the committees should adhere to the following guidelines, as well as the more general conflict of interest policies of Stockholm University and the Swedish Research Council (see Resources).
Committee members with conflicts of interest must not be present in discussions or decisions
When evaluation committees meet, any biased member must leave the room (or conference call) during discussions and decisions of those candidates where they are biased. It is up to the chairperson of the committee to see to that the candidate is fairly treated (e.g., if there is a vote, it must be taken into consideration that one person is absent).
Committee members must not grade candidates with which they have conflicts of interest
Online recruitment systems like ReachMee and AcademicJobsOnline offer tools for grading/ranking and commenting on each application. Such rankings can then be accumulated to give overall rankings for candidates. To ensure that committee members with conflicts of interest do not influence such overall rankings, they must not enter candidate rankings where such conflicts exits.
Committee members may write letters of recommendation
Such letters of recommendation should be considered in the same way as all other letters, since letters are almost always written by persons with positive views of the candidates.
