1. Principles of quality assurance
All IAB research projects involve quality assurance. The responsibility for quality assurance of scientific projects is borne above all by the Research Units (Variant A). In specific cases, additional quality assurance measures take place outside the department according to various procedures (Variant B) or outside the institute (Variant C). Regardless of the general rules, the Directorate may impose or suspend a specific quality assurance procedure for any project. This decision must be documented. There is no special obligation to report to the Directorate.
A project outline created for every project is the basis for quality assurance in the departments and for the decision about any required additional quality assurance. It states the research question and its scientific relevance, the methods and data used, the planned staff and non-monetary resources as well as a work schedule. This outline shall also provide information about the importance of the project for policy advice, the implementation of the (research) strategy of IAB and the fulfilment of legal mandates. The data to be input in IABaktiv are the minimum standard in this regard. This is part of the (electronic) project documents which must be retained pursuant to the rules on the safeguarding of good academic practice.
The type of quality assurance must be documented in IABaktiv and/or in the project management cockpit and added to the project documents (as of 1 July 2022, quality assurance must be documented in the project management cockpit for all new projects). The documentation contains information at least about the subject area of quality assurance (entire project or in exceptional cases partial project, individual aspects such as data availability and suitability, method, etc.), about the function or organisation of the parties involved (e.g. department management, working group) and about the quality assurance result. It may be significantly shortened for projects with quality assurance measures according to Variant A and the project volume of which is not above six person months, or for projects implemented as part of the agreements on objectives in the legal sphere of German Social Code Book II (SGB II).
2. Basic forms of quality assurance
Variant A: Quality assurance on the responsibility of the Research Units
For this variant, the type of quality assurance is at the Research Units' discretion. It may comprise methods such as the multiple-eye principle, peer review or counselling on specific subjects. For example, the following measures can be used (list is incomplete):
- Sifting and commenting the project outline by the department management
- Collegial counselling based on the project outline by colleagues of their own or another Research Unit
- Methods counselling (e.g. by the Competence Centre Empirical Methods)
- Presentation and discussion of the project depending on size and importance as part of an internal department meeting, a working group, a meeting of research department managers or with the Scientific Advisor Council
- Advisor councils or accompanying rounds for ongoing projects
Standards of quality assurance can be derived from the IAB statement on the safeguarding of good academic practice. With the exception of the documentation obligation in the project management cockpit (see Section I), there are no provisions for the departments in this regard.
Variant B: Additional quality assurance outside the Research Units
Different sub-variants of quality assurance for scientific projects come into consideration for quality assurance outside the Research Units, which are outlined in the following.
Variant B1: Written project assessment
For written project assessment, the project management provides the Project Assessment working group (WG) with assessable project documents. These are assessed in writing by at least two reviewers not belonging to the Research Units involved in the project and who are professionally qualified, according to the criteria relevance of the research topic, content-related and methodical conclusiveness as well as feasibility of the project concept development. The reviewers may ask the project management to comment on the remarks, speak up for the incorporation of their suggestions, demand a reformulation of the application, or deny the application. The project assessment process is accompanied by two members of the Project Assessment WG responsible for reporting. On the basis of the expert opinions, the statement of the project management and a summary report by the reporting secretaries, the Project Assessment WG decides whether it will recommend the release of the project to the Directorate.
The assessable project documents must be submitted to the Project Assessment WG three months prior to the scheduled project start in order to ensure the timely conduct of the assessment. This deadline may be shortened, if requested, by the so-called fast track procedure: In this case, both reporting secretaries and reviewers are nominated already before the assessable project documents are completed. The project management recommends a binding date in the project management cockpit for the assessable project documents to be submitted so that the assessment can start immediately afterwards.
For projects where tendering is involved, assessable documents must be submitted at least nine months prior to the scheduled project start, since the processing time by the BA purchasing department currently takes at least six months.
Variant B2: Assessment workshop
Project assessment an also be completed as part of an assessment workshop. It must have the same quality standards as a written project assessment. Again the Project Assessment WG nominates two reviewers - following the suggestion of the Directorate, if applicable. Assessable project documents must be created here as well in advance. These are checked for completeness by a reporting secretary from the Project Assessment WG and submitted to all parties involved at least one week prior to the date of the assessment workshop. As part of the assessment workshop, the project is presented and discussed with all its details. The requirements and recommendations of the reviewers, their vote for or against the implementation of the project as well as the statements of the project management as to how and until when the requirements and recommendations will be implemented must be recorded. The assessable project documents, the project presentation and the minutes agreed with and co-signed by the reviewers must be documented for the Project Assessment WG. On the basis of this documentation and a summary by the reporting secretary present at the assessment workshop, the Project Assessment WG decides whether it will recommend the implementation of the project to the Directorate.
Variant B3: Accompanying quality assurance
For projects that have serious time pressure, accompanying quality assurance is possible in exceptional cases. Only if the project management is demonstrably not responsible that prior assessment according to Variants B1 or B2 is not possible, may the Directorate approve accompanying quality assurance upon application via the project management cockpit.
Since in such cases, the implementation decision has generally been made already, the objective of accompanying quality assurance is to ensure the scientific level and increase it, if required.
Accompanying quality assurance is usually performed in the form of an assessment workshop the procedures of which are described in Variant B2. The assessment workshop should be performed as early as possible, but three months after the project start at the latest.
Upon request by the project management, the Directorate may also approve other methods of accompanying quality assurance which the project management will then implement independently. Examples are quality assurance by an external scientific committee or the establishment of an advisor council or accompanying round.
Variant C: Scientific quality assurance outside IAB
For projects externally funded by research promotion (project of category 1 pursuant to the IAB third-party funding concept), quality assurance takes place via the research promotion facilities. Even if the promotion is not cost-covering and IAB funds from outside the department are required for the implementation, quality assurance by the third-party funder suffices if all parts of the project are assessed.
3. Access to various forms of quality assurance
At first the cost structure of the project is decisive for the form of quality assurance to be applied. Secondly, information from the project management cockpit may lead to the assignment to Variant B1 or B2, for example, as part of risk assessment.
Variant A: Quality assurance on the responsibility of the Research Units
For all project that are funded solely from the staff resources of the Research Units already assigned by the Directorate, the Units and their managements are responsible for quality assurance. So this applies if they do not receive any
- funds from the BA research title or expert title (SGB III),
- funds from the project costs title (e.g. allocation funds of impact research SGB II),
- and no additional staff resources (e.g. project-specific authorities).
erhalten. If the project requires additional non-monetary resources up to a volume of EUR 50,000, the responsibility for quality assurance remains with the Research Unit.
This regulation applies to projects of SGB III and SGB II research (for the latter, as far as these were filed as part of the process of defining objectives with the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs).
Variant A of quality assurance also applies to externally funded projects of categories 4 (standard research mandate) and 5 (research mandate with confidentiality agreement) if the determinations on the business policy-specific importance or reputational risks for IAB due to the political topicality or ethical aspects are not in conflict with it.
Variant A of quality assurance also applies to cooperation projects with low business policy-specific importance (externally funded projects of category 3) requiring less than EUR 50,000 of non-monetary resources and less than three person months (already assigned staff resources) ("minimum limit").
Variant B of quality assurance is generally required for projects requiring additional personnel funds.
Variant B: Additional quality assurance outside the Research Units
Quality assurance by the Project Assessment WG (Variant B) is required if:
- projects of SGB III or SGB II research require funding from the BA research title, the expert title or the IAB project costs title, and the sum of the additionally required non-monetary resources exceeds the volume of EUR 50,000;
- projects require additional personnel funds (exceeding the personnel funds already assigned to the Research Unit);
- the projects are externally funded projects of category 2 (cooperation projects with a high contribution by IAB or with a great business policy-specific importance) or of category 3 (cooperation projects with less business policy-specific importance), as far as the latter are above the minimum limit (i.e. requiring more than EUR 50,000 of non-monetary resources and/or more than three person months).
Quality assurance by the Project Assessment WG must be considered if a project
- requires staff equalling more than three person months (even if it is funded solely from department funds or lies below the minimum limit, see above), and
- it has a great business policy-specific importance for BA,
- involves politically charged or controversial issues,
- if research ethics-related issues must be clarified,
- or if other reputational risks for IAB exist.
The identification of such projects is done after the affected Research Unit has entered the respective project in the project management cockpit with information on the business policy-specific importance and special risks. The head of the Project Assessment WG then decides together with members of the Directorate whether quality assurance according to Variant B or an abandonment of quality assurance outside the department is suggested to the Directorate. The decision of the Directorate must be documented in the project management cockpit.
Variant C: Quality assurance outside IAB by research promotion facilities
If any part of a funded project (project category 1) is funded by additional research funds from the BA research title (e.g. a survey) and is not expressly assessed by the third-party funder, the rules for Variant B apply to those parts not included in the external quality assurance measures if additional non-monetary and personnel resources are required which have not yet been assigned to the department. If the additionally required resources are provided via department funds, Variant A applies (quality assurance on the department's responsibility).
The formal review whether external quality assurance applies to the entire project or not is the responsibility of the external funding consultant. In case of doubt, the Project Assessment WG must be brought in.