French term (edited): classé en ordre utile

A bit of web-based deduction - not based on any expertise I am afraid.

I can find a number of references, particularly Belgian, using classé en ordre utile. In a lot of cases, these relate to public "competitions" where there are a limited number of places such as getting into a particular school; or indeed to elections to office.

The list is in order, those at the top (above a certain cut off, or the top n items) are retained.

My suggestion would be to post this as a FR-FR question just to get understanding and to look out for answers from Belgians!

Not the best refs in the world but one of only a few bilingual documents and I think the EN very slightly fudges it:

http://ec.europa.eu/energy/intelligent/call_for_proposals/do...
Pour qu'une proposition puisse être classée en ordre utile pour l'octroi d'un financement,

http://ec.europa.eu/energy/intelligent/call_for_proposals/do...
If a proposal is to be classified as worth funding,

www.philodroit.be/IMG/doc/ARC-MAMFinal.doc
Classé en ordre utile, ce projet, s’il est bien retenu, sera un support important à

I like this last reference because it suggests that being "classé en ordre utile" is a first step to being "retenu"...

Hopefully a few hints anyway...

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Note added at 3 hrs (2008-05-16 18:29:43 GMT)
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I speak absolutely no Dutch but I think I can understand this bilingual FR-NL reference:

http://www.spirousailors.be/belgian-junior-cup.htm

Il faut se classer en ordre utile à chaque épreuve pour être sélectionné pour l'épreuve suivante.

De bestgeplaatste worden geselecteerd voor de volgende wedstrijd

I take this to mean "Those who are best placed in one contest are selected for the following contest"

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Note added at 4 hrs (2008-05-16 18:49:20 GMT)
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Another suggestion: qualify

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Note added at 4 hrs (2008-05-16 19:25:09 GMT)
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A semi-decent EN-FR ref, in the context of elections and placing non-nationals high enough up the candidate lists that their nomination actually means something:

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/Notice.do?mode=dbl&lang=en&ihmlang=...

16. invite les partis politiques à accueillir davantage dans leurs rangs et sur leurs listes, en ordre utile, les citoyens de l'Union non-nationaux

16. Calls on political parties to accept more Union citizens who are not nationals of the country concerned as party members and candidates on electoral lists in a favourable position

Again, we seem to be talking about "getting high enough up the list".

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Note added at 23 hrs (2008-05-17 14:37:02 GMT)
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This one has really got my brain going!

A bit more research has thrown up this doc about FP6 which might be one of the documents you have already looked at:

http://cordis.europa.eu/documents/documentlibrary/66623291EN...

Section 5 explains that a ranked list of all projects is drawn up. Those at the top of the list will (generally) be the ones which are funded.

Section 5.3 refers to the rejection decisions, of which this translation appears to be one. The specific case which appears to apply is "those [projects] which, because they fall below a certain ranking, cannot be funded [...]".

So, all the projects are ranked (classés). I deduce that those at the top of the list are those which are classés "en ordre utile"; this particular project fell below a certain ranking so it was not ranked "en ordre utile".

I think the project "was not shortlisted after the ranking process" or "was not retained after the ranking process" might be the most succinct translation we can get.