The 'Rules for Submission of Proposals and the Related Evaluation, Selection and Award Procedures' set out the basic procedures to be followed by all programmers under the 7th Framework Programmer.
All proposals which deal with ethical issues and all proposals for which ethical concerns have been identified during the evaluation process may be reviewed by a separate ethical evaluation panel, before they can be selected for funding. Further information on this ethical review and all aspects of the evaluation procedure are given in the 'Rules on Submission of Proposals and the Related Evaluation, Selection and Award Procedures'. The work programmers, and consequently the calls for proposals, may specify and restrict the participation of legal entities, according to their activity and type, or according to the funding scheme used.
Calls for proposals may involve a two-stage submission and/or a two-step evaluation procedure. When such a procedure is employed, this is clearly stated in the text of the call for proposals and the Guides for Applicants. More information on two-stage submission and two-step evaluation is given in the 'Rules on Submission of Proposals and the Related Evaluation, Selection and Award Procedures'.
In carrying out the evaluations of proposals received, the Commission may chose to send the proposals to external experts, or to make the proposals available electronically, so that the experts may carry out their examination and review of the proposals at their home and/or their place of work.