Power abuse during a complaint procedure in a EU call for projects

In 2021, I submitted a proposal to the "Creative Innovation Lab," a call managed by Creative Europe. The project had previously been recognized among the top innovations in the Cultural and Creative Industries by the Startup Europe Accelerathon (an European Commission initiative), the Italian Alliance for Sustainable Development (ASviS), and the Horizon-2020 CLIC project.

After receiving positive feedback by all peer-reviewers in relation to the product concept, the proposal was ultimately rejected based on a reviewer’s claim that it failed to demonstrate the integration of the audiovisual sector—a mandatory requirement. In my redress request, I demonstrated that this was a factual error, as the audiovisual integration was present and met all call requirements.

However, the EACEA officer processing the request dismissed the complaint by arguing that the reviewer never stated that the sector was "not integrated," but rather that its integration was simply "not demonstrated," suggesting that the proposal merely suffered from a lack of detail.

Ultimately, a 70-page project proposal that had received multiple acknowledgments from international initiatives in research and sustainability was discarded due to an error by a peer-reviewer. Subsequently, the redress mechanism—which is intended to correct such errors for the sake of innovation and fairness—manifested as an instance of power abuse aimed at denying a correction, raising concerns about the validity and purpose of such mechanisms.

The European Ombudsman subsequently declined to investigate, stating there were "no grounds" to open an inquiry without further elaboration, which raises concerns that acts of power abuse by reviewers may not be subject to accountability. To this day, neither the EACEA nor the European Ombudsman has accepted accountability or responded to the highlighted failure to correct these instances of power abuse, putting at risk the effort of individuals, procedural fairness, and sustainability goals.

The case also highlights that the applicant was not provided with the individual peer reviews, but rather a selective collage compiled by the EACEA office. This prevented the applicant from accurately assessing the comments and identifying potential errors or abuses of power.

You can find the full investigation with evidence and disclosed files on Zenodo.
You can find additional videos on this subject below.
You can ask the EACEA and European Ombudsman to respond to these allegations by signing this change.org petition.