This submission offers observations on the draft CPE Vendor Evaluation Guide from a researcher with active engagement in ICANN's capacity development programmes and sustained interest in how evaluation processes affect multilingual and community-based applicants in the 2026 Round.

On the evaluation criteria overall, the guide is clearly structured and the scoring rubrics provide useful operational clarity for panels. The distinction between the vendor's facilitation role and the evaluator's independent judgment is appropriately drawn, and the calibration requirement across panels is a meaningful safeguard against inconsistency.

On Criterion 2 (Nexus) and IDN strings, the guide includes a pertinent question — whether an applied-for IDN string is in the language and script of use for the identified community — but does not develop this into substantive guidance. For linguistic and script-based communities, the nexus between string and community is inseparable from the script in which that string is expressed. A panel evaluating an IDN application without expertise in the relevant script may struggle to assess whether a string constitutes a full match, a well-known alternative, or a partial match. The guide should specify that panels evaluating IDN strings must include or consult an evaluator with relevant linguistic and script competence, and that independent research for such applications should extend to script-specific sources rather than relying solely on Latin-script internet searches.

On community expert consultation, the guide permits but does not systematise expert consultation. Given the diversity of community types anticipated in the 2026 Round, clearer guidance on when expert consultation is expected rather than optional, and how expert input is weighted against applicant-submitted evidence, would strengthen consistency and the defensibility of outcomes under Evaluation Challenge.