Dear all,

Per discussion last week the secretariat has been asked to invite the UAC to nominate up to three volunteers to join the shortlisting panel to review the UA Day 2026 proposals.

If you are interested, you are kindly requested to share your interest to the list, or Joke or me directly no later than 21 November 17.00 UTC. If 4 or members of the UAC volunteer by that time, we will ask the UAC leadership to nominate the 3 candidates on Monday 24 November. We appreciate this is a tight deadline, but the proposal submission deadline closes on 24 November 2025.  

Information on the selection panel and role of panelists

To ensure equal representation in the cross-community group, it is also planned to have volunteer nominees from ALAC and UNESCO take part in this panel.

See the UA Day 2026 announcement for details.

Volunteer Responsibilities:

• Review previous shortlisting criteria and finalize/agree on it before 28 November.
• Review and evaluate around 50 proposals in 8 days (by 10 December) based on predefined criteria. (This number is a rough estimate and may be subject to change.) The questions on the proposal form can give you an idea of what type of information volunteers will be evaluating.
• Participate in virtual meetings to discuss and finalize the shortlisting process (3-4 meetings in total).
• Maintain confidentiality and adhere to the ethical guidelines of the review process.

Time Commitment:

The shortlisting work is expected to take up to 3 weeks and aimed to be completed by 16 December. We plan to have mostly weekly meetings between Monday and Thursday. Please ensure that you have the availability to commit to this timeframe before volunteering.

Conflict of Interest:

To maintain the integrity of the shortlisting process, individuals who have submitted proposals or associated with the organizations submitting UA Day proposals are kindly requested not to participate in this volunteer opportunity due to potential conflicts of interest.

On behalf of the secretariat, kind regards,

Bart