- Peer reviewers are four times more likely to give a grant application an "excellent" or "outstanding" score rather than a "poor" or "good" one when they are chosen by the grant’s applicants, an analysis of Swiss funding applications has found.
Peer reviewers are four times more likely to give a grant application an "excellent" or "outstanding" score rather than a "poor" or "good" one when they are chosen by the grant’s applicants, an analysis of Swiss funding applications has found.
The study, at the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), was completed in 2016, and the SNSF acted quickly on its findings by banning grant applicants from being able to recommend referees.
The authors, who are affiliated with the SNSF, posted their results online at PeerJ Preprints1 on 19 March, and in their paper call on other funders to reconsider their funding processes.
“I think this practice should be abolished altogether,” says study co-author Anna Severin, a sociologist who studies peer review at the University of Bern. Other experts are also wary of the problems that author-picked peer reviewers might cause, but some question whether banning them altogether is the right step.
doi: 10.1038/d41586-019-01198-3
What do you think should be done?
Sometimes, a discussion needs some oxygen, a gentle prodding or probing, to set it alight, just like a setting up a fireplace at a camp in the woods or at home. Since there is a very poor response to a very important question/discussion, I add some encouragement with masterpiece articles that should be read by all at ResearchGate. (see files) See how innovation is stifled by peer review, see for yourself--first-hand. Also read: Behavioral and Brain Sciences 1982 / 6 Vol. 5; Iss. 2
Peer review: A philosophically faulty concept which is proving disastrous for science Horrobin, David F.
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