The SMART Consortium recognises that Doctoral Candidates that have been excluded from the SMART EMJD may consider that they have grounds to appeal against the way that the procedures leading to the exclusion decision have been conducted.

Doctoral Candidates who intend to appeal against an exclusion decision shall follow the appeal procedure described below.

Appeals must be entered onto the form provided below and must be sent in pdf format (duly dated and signed) as an email attachment to the SMART Secretariat (smartphd [at] unitn.it). The subject line of the e-mail must read “APPEAL SMART EMJD + the surname of the candidate”.

The purpose of this Appeal procedure is to verify that the exclusion procedure has been applied correctly, has been fair to the excluded candidate, and that no error has been made while evaluating the candidate’s position. The Appeal procedure cannot review the academic merit of the exclusion decision. Appeals can only be considered where they are fully supported by documentation provided by the excluded Doctoral Candidate. Candidates have time to send their appeal up to a maximum of 3 months after their exclusion has been notified.

Once the SMART Secretariat receives the Appeal Form together with the compulsory supporting documentation, a SMART Appeal Panel will be nominated by the SMART Supervisory Board. The SMART Appeal Panel is composed of two independent members nominated by the SMART Supervisory Board who have had no significant relationship with the candidate who is making the appeal. Normally the SMART Appeal Panel is composed of one representative of the SMART Academic Board and one representative of the SMART Administrative Board.

Once the Appeal Panel is established, it examines the Appeal form and the supporting documentation from both the student and the primary institution and, after due consideration, the Appeal Panel takes the final decision concerning the correctness and fairness of the procedure leading to the exclusion of the Doctoral Candidate. The Appeal Panel shares the outcome of the appeal and the reasons for rejecting / accepting it with the SMART Supervisory Board and it is then communicated to the Candidate who launched the appeal by the SMART Secretariat.