9. Assessment procedure
An Industrial PhD application can either be approved, conditionally approved or rejected.
If a project is conditionally approved, the applicant must meet a number of conditions before the project can start. DASTI will send the applying company a letter detailing these conditions after processing the application. When the conditions have been met, the project may commence.
Applications without named candidates can be either conditionally approved or rejected. If conditionally approved, the company must subsequently find a qualified candidate for the project, for instance through job advertisements. When the candidate is selected, the company submits documentation for the candidate’s qualifications to DASTI. If DASTI, possibly after consulting the Programme Committee, assesses that the candidate lives up to the Industrial PhD candidate requirements, the company can hire the candidate and the project may commence. A candidate must be found and approved no later than six months after the project has obtained a conditional approval.
If more qualified applications are received than there are means to subsidise, the Programme Committee will prioritise applications on considerations of research, academic and industrial sector aspects. Here, the purposes of the Industrial PhD Programme and the Council’s objectives will be taken into consideration.
If a project is rejected, the applying company receives a letter stating the grounds for rejection. A rejected Industrial PhD project cannot be initiated, regardless of whether the project has the university’s approval. It is possible to reapply. When an application is resubmitted, changes in the project description must be clearly indicated, and a description of how the grounds for the previous rejection have been addressed must be included. All application material incl. new signatures must be resubmitted when reapplying.
The Danish Council for Technology and Innovation is the appeals body for all announced decisions, cf. the Act on Technology and Innovation (executive order no. 835 of 13 August 2008 including subsequent changes). All rejections are elaborated and supplied with guidelines on how to appeal. Professional, academic and legal matters may be appealed. The Council’s decisions cannot be appealed, as its decisions cannot be brought before any other administrative authority, cf. § 4 (1-5).
