Scheduling research grant proposal evaluation meetings

In many funding agencies a model is adopted whereby a fixed panel of evaluators evaluate the set of applications. This is then followed by a general meeting where each proposal is discussed by those evaluators assigned to it with a view to agreeing on a consensus score for that proposal. It is not uncommon for some experts to be unavailable for the entire duration of the meeting; constraints of this nature, and others complicate the search for a solution. We report on a system developed to ensure the smooth running of such meetings.