Braun Tibor, Schubert András (szerk.): Szakértői bírálat (peer review) a tudományos kutatásban : Válogatott tanulmányok a téma szakirodalmából (A MTAK Informatikai És Tudományelemzési Sorozata 7., 1993)
IAN I. MITROFF and DARYL E. CHUBIN: Peer Review at the NSF: A Dialectical Policy Analysis
119 MITROFF & CHUBIN: PEER REVIEW AT THE NSF NSF review process and their attitudes toward this process', 38 future surveys (or other studies, for that matter) must augment our knowledge claims. To wit, we would like to know more about their experiences with NSF, but we should also know more about them qua working scientists, and in relation to their views of science. The Hensler study precludes inferences about NSF's peer review process not only by restricting the range of questions asked of the respondents, but also by restricting what we know about the respondents. Even if one retained the current set of questions asked about the process, other questions about the respondents should be asked. For example, much is made in Hensler's report of the finding that a substantial proportion of both reviewers and applicants feel that a proposal which is consistent with the mainstream of thought in an area stands a better chance of being funded; indeed, 53 percent of the reviewers and 60 percent of the applicants who have been recently declined for a NSF grant and who, in addition, have been previously unsuccessful in securing a grant, concur with this proposition. Given the data and the contention of Congressmen, among others, that the peer review system is generally unresponsive to new or innovative ideas, it would seem especially desirable to seek out and secure the views and experiences of those who can be identified as 'innovative'. If the measurement (if not the definition) of 'innovativeness' is fraught with difficulties, then calling for the study of those judged to be particularly innovative might merely seem to exchange one can of worms for another. Nevertheless, there now exists a growing literature in the social psychology of science 3 9 which makes it possible to identify and to differentiate empirically 'more innovatively' minded from 'less innovatively' minded scientists. It would be germane to the debate to know the views of those scientists who may be classified as innovators. Are they as a group more sensitive to the perception of bias (or its absence) in the system? Are they even more sensitive to the lack of receptivity afforded innovative ideas? Are they less likely to apply for a NSF grant because of their perceptions, rightly or wrongly, of NSF? Or is it rather because of their particular innovativeness that they are able to play grantsmanship — that is, to clothe novel ideas in mundane or conventional terms? 4 0 Overall, the most serious deficiency of the Hensler study is its fundamental concern with attitudes — that is to say, with what
