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Maintainers -ImageQuintin Coetzee, MBSc

External Engagement Policy

This is a controlled document

In line with Open Energy Transition regulatory obligations, changes to Controlled documents must be approved and merged by a code maintainer. All contributions are welcome and encouraged.

1. Purpose​

This policy ensures that all external engagement undertaken by OET team members align with their responsibilities in their respective roles at OET. It also ensures that OETers know how query matters relating to existing and new external engagements, and how to raise possible conflicts of interest with external engagements.

The goal of this policy is not to police the personal activities of OETers. On the contrary. It serves to ensure that there is a clear, mutual understanding of what does and does not compromise "OET work", and what does and does not need to be asked about, in terms of external engagements

You may have external commitments that you assume are fine, but may actually accidentally be conflicting with your work with OET. If this is the case, we can discuss and fix these situations. You may also wish to merely confirm that something you're interested in taking part in doesn't conflict with your OET work. It's always a good idea to do this. Transparency and clear communication are important in this regard.

2. What is an external engagement?​

  • Definition
    • Work, be it paid, volunteer, or in another capacity, that is performed outside the scope of your role at OET (the responsibilities of which are covered in your contract)
  • External engagements are fine, so long as they don't:
    • Negatively impact on your ability to fulfil the requirements of your role on our team
    • Create some kind of conflict of interest, where your external commitment is in competition with OET's work/outcomes/mission, etc.
    • Create a situation where you are deemed, in any way, to be publicly representing OET in any kind of official capacity, when in actuality you are not
    • Go against any other terms within your specific contract (please check these)
  • Examples (this list is not exhaustive or exact, and serves merely to represent some examples of the types of external engagements that this policy pertains to)
    • Building and managing your own company, be it registered or unregistered, for profit or nonprofit, on your own or with a team
    • Any work performed in our sector, i.e., energy, renewables, energy system modeling, and the like. This applies to all geographical regions
    • Representing an advocacy organization, media outlet, blog, news column, etc., that is based around our industry, or based around open source models and software
    • Hosting workshops in your personal capacity (in person or online) that relate to the energy sector, open source community, etc.
  • Exclusions
    • Personal engagements like volunteer work over a weekend at a local dog shelter, or writing your own fiction novel on a weekday evening. These obviously have no negative impact to your work at OET, and don't pose any kind of conflict of interest
    • Any other engagements similar to the above exclusion examples. Use your judgement with this, and ask if you're unsure

3. Process​

  • Communicate clearly and directly any existing external commitments you already have, if you think your manager and HoD may not be aware of them
  • Check with your manager and HoD about any new external commitments you'd like to behin with, to make sure they align with your OET work
  • Update us (again, your manager and HoD, as well as our Head of People, if you wish) if anything changes in this regard

4. Questions​

  • If you're unsure about anything related to this policy, please ask Quintin, our Head of People, who wrote it
  • If you're unsure if an external engagement you're already taking part in, or a new one you're interested in doing, conflicts with your work with OET, please ask your HoD