The expected capacities of experts

The AERES expects its experts to work on the basis of common standards. The profiles of the experts selected vary depending on the evaluated institution. In all cases, the AERES’ evaluation draws on collectively accountable, complementary skills.

Characteristics common to all the Agency’s experts

The AERES makes sure that the experts have certain characteristics in common, namely:

• for professor and researcher peers, who are by far the main participants in the evaluation, they are required to have:
  - recognised disciplinary skills
  - current or previous responsibilities in higher education, research or exploitation of research findings
  - experience abroad
• for “non-academic” experts, the AERES requires them to have proven competence in the review field in question (at least 5 years’ experience in this field)
• for students, the AERES requires them to have sound experience in research and higher education, to have held elective or associative responsibilities in their universities or enrolled in a master’s level degree at the very least.

Consideration of these criteria for the choice of expert varies depending on the specific nature of what is being evaluated.

Specific competencies of experts in the department for the evaluation of institutions

The evaluation of an institution or research organisation requires a very large variety of experts to be called on so that all the fields of evaluation are covered, from governance to research. Experts must meet one or more of the following criteria to be able to evaluate a higher education and research institution (universities, grandes écoles and grands établissements).

Experience in managing higher education and research:

• Directing an institution
• Assuming sector-based responsibilities in the management team (vice-president for research, programmes, information system, resources, etc.)
• One of these experts should be foreign if possible

A disciplinary skill: the scientific discipline must correlate with one of the disciplinary sectors of the evaluated institution. For evaluations on the institution’s training and research strategy, a total disciplinary match is not required.

An administrative skill: staff management, public accounting, asset management (regional education authority secretaries-general, accountants, etc.)

A business competence: director of human resources, manager, business manager in relation with higher education and research within businesses, etc.

A competence in student life matters: current or former student vice-president, head of the Students’ Union (or equivalent), etc.

Experts tasked with evaluating research organisations (public science and technology institutions and public industrial and commercial institutions) must meet the same criteria overall, but the committees comprise more foreign researchers and professors as well as French and foreign high-level representatives of the business world.

Specific competencies for the department for the evaluation of research units

Experts must have a broad range of skills encompassing several disciplinary or organisational aspects of the life of a research unit.

Disciplinary competencies:
The expert must justify recognised skills in the field of the evaluated unit’s speciality.

Research knowledge and management:

• The expert must carry out a research activity either within a higher education institution, a research organisation or a research and development facility in the private sector. He or she must have proof of at least 5 years’ experience in this field.
• The expert must justify a managerial research responsibility and have at least headed up a team or a platform for example.

Experience abroad:
20% of the experts the department calls on mainly carry out their research duties abroad.

Specific competencies for the department for the evaluation of programmes and degrees

Experts must be aware of the issues surrounding training and vocational integration.

Experts in the academic field must have carried out significant teaching activities in higher education. They must also have held a position of teaching responsibility (sector manager, vice-Rectors of the CEVU (Advisory Board for University Life and Studies), etc.)

Experts from a “professional background” must have taken part in classes as a professor, course director or member of the conseil de perfectionnement (programme enhancement board).

For doctoral schools, the committee members must have proven experience in the field of doctoral training.