What is the MERIT portal for appointments at Charité and BIH?
The MERIT portal for professorships is a web-based software for transparent, fair and quality-oriented appointment procedures. The portal comprises three corresponding tools: 1) the application tool for submitting applications in the form of a structured, narrative CV, 2) the assessment tool for viewing the application documents for authorized members of the appointment committees with integrated strategies to reduce the risk of bias, 3) the tool for application management. The MERIT Portal is a digitization project for institutional research assessments, which is managed and scientifically supervised by employees of the BIH QUEST Center for Responsible Research at Charité.
What is the goal?
The MERIT Portal aims to transparently present the relevant evaluation criteria to applicants and to support applicants in the form of a structured, narrative CV when submitting their application. The MERIT Portal aims to support the appointment committees in carrying out quality-oriented, robust evaluations and to enable fair comparisons. The MERIT Portal aims to support the Business Division Professorial Appointments at Charité in carrying out legally compliant appointment procedures.
What is the application tool?
The application tool is a tool for the digital input of a structured, narrative CV. The number of additional documents you need to upload has been reduced to a minimum.
Structured CVs facilitate fair and uniform comparisons of application documents. In addition, structured CVs increase transparency for applicants with regard to relevant performance criteria in the individual procedures.
Why can't I just create a document with the relevant information myself and send it to you?
The structured input in the application tool allows us to ensure that the entries are structured in a standardized way. This is explicitly not about a standardization of possible answers, but a transparent structuring of the applied criteria for the applicants on the one hand and the evaluators on the other.
How do I start my application?
Before you start your application, you must register. To do this, click on the Register tab in the header of the welcome page and follow the instructions.
Which criteria are relevant ?
The MERIT portal for appointments contains a diverse set of criteria which, in addition to general information about your academic career, also relate to elements of responsible science and innovation (RRI) and open science, productivity and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). You can find an overview of the criteria and explanations here.
Do I have to be able to meet all the criteria?
In general, it is not expected that the criteria are equally important in all procedures. Please note the priorities and performance requirements formulated in the call for applications and the notes in the explanations of the criteria (e.g. "If teams science has not played a role in your academic work to date, please briefly explain why")
What happens to the information I provide in the application portal?
The content of your information will be released unchanged via a web-based assessment tool for the authorized members of the appointment committees after it has been checked by the Business Division Professorial Appointments at Charit. Strategies for reducing (unconscious) bias to strengthen the peer review process are integrated into the assessment tool. The MERIT portal itself does not create any evaluations or rankings, and no additional criteria are collected.
Who do I contact if I have questions?
If you have any questions about the process, implementation and status of the appointment procedure, please contact berufungen[at]charite.de
If you have any questions about the MERIT portal or experience difficulties, please contact quest-merit[at]bih-charite.de
For technical problems, please contact quest-merit[at]bih-charite.de
My organization is interested in the MERIT Portal, who can I contact?
The MERIT Portal is an in-house development of Charité and BIH. A whitelabel version is freely available to external interested parties for non-commercial use and joint further development (contact: quest-merit[at]bih-charite.de).