When I used the classic SETI, it would also run when I was logged out, and the computer displayed the login window.

BOINC does not do this.

Any way this can be activated?
This is the most likely way I would contribut idle time:
I log out of my machine at night, but it has to stay on to wait for the institutional back-up: Time well spent for SETI.

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Short answer is "no" - with either the Standard GUI or the Menubar versions, they are launched on startup when the user logs in. If you use the CLI version, realizing my very limited Unix knowledge, I believe there is a way to set it up under "root" such that it will start at system boot rather than user login. Perhaps one of our CLI users will step in and describe the process for doing that.

This is identical to the question in the thread "Does BOINC/SETI process when logged out but powered on", so you might check there as well, in case it's answered better there.

There are only two ways to run boinc when no users are logged in...
(Will continue to process data but without a screensaver)

1. Run the command line version in the background.

./boinc &

2. Launch Boinc Manager from the command line. (preferred method)

/Applications/BOINCManager.app/Contents/resources/boinc -redirectio -dir /Library/Application\\ Support/BOINC\\ Data/ &