| NCCR North-South Ombudsperson |
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The Board of Directors has the responsibility of electing two ombudspersons who are at the service of all NCCR North-South staff members. The ombudspersons (OPs) are a confidential resource available to all NCCR North-South team members. They are considered a neutral instance that helps ensure equity, fair processes, and compliance with the programme's policies and procedures. The OPs act as receivers of complaints for persons who believe they have been treated unfairly. They engage in coaching to help resolve difficult situations independently, and serve as mediators who assist people in conflicts to achieve a fair resolution.
Before forwarding a case to an OP, an NCCR North-South member should first try to solve the problem directly with the people concerned, particularly in the case of minor disagreements on a personal level. A person seeking the services of the OP must show, as a first step, that intra-institutional means of conflict resolution have already been tried, but were unsatisfactory. It must be kept in mind that the OP cannot judge whether a complaint is justified.
Generally, OPs receive two types of complaints, which may overlap: administrative / juridical complaints (e.g. contract matters), and personal matters (e.g. sexual harassment, mobbing, discrimination):
Administrative / juridical matters: the OP passes such complaints on to the appropriate persons in the Management Centre (MC) who deal with administrative matters via the NCCR North-South coordinator. The coordinator determines whether the case can be solved immediately or whether it is necessary to forward it to the ExCo or even further.
Personal matters: the OP communicates directly with the person bringing the complaint, so as to help find a solution, but it has to be remembered that OPs are not professional mediators, and thus cannot be expected to resolve the whole matter. Their main task can only be to provide mental support for the person concerned and help search for alternatives which the person bringing the complaint can eventually use to resolve the issue. In serious cases such as sexual harassment, and if the OP and the person bringing the complaint are located in different countries and can only communicate electronically, the OP will soon reach the limits of his/her coaching expertise. Consequently, a number of alternatives must be taken into consideration, such as face-to-face mediation with a local professional mediator, or putting the case on the agenda of the ExCo and/or BoD, with appropriate information about the progress of the case to the OPs.
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Responsible Persons: |
Sisson Jonathan
N.N. a second Ombudsperson will be nominated by the Board of Directors by the beginning of 2010
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