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)
RUSTUM ROY: Alternatives to Review by Peers: A Contribution to the Theory of Scientific Choice
153 ROY: ALTERNATIVES TO REVIEW BY PEERS reallocated to diffuse the boundary by taking the bottom 15 to 20 per cent of the successful applicants and cutting their budgets by, let us say, 25 per cent and awarding partial support —from 33 to 50 per cent of their requested sum —to 10 to 15 per cent of those just below the present dividing line. Getting something started, or maintaining something already under way, is often invaluable to morale and very economical. In the United States where different major agencies which support research use different systems, it would be a worthwhile experiment to employ both the schemes within the same agency in different divisions. After some years, the parts of the scientific community which have had experience of both schemes could be surveyed for their preference. Meanwhile, studies of the preferences of scientists who have already been supported by both systems might be undertaken immediately to justify the experiment. Conclusion The questions of scientific choice which were left unresolved when the rapid expansion of academic science in the United States began in the early 1960s have come back to trouble the scientific community. There is now widespread dissatisfaction with the process of review by peers as one of the major systems for the allocation of public funds for research. While earlier criticisms had been brushed off by the assertion—unsupported by facts —that no other systems existed, the present situation cannot be so easily dismissed. A serious examination of other national and international arrangements shows that a wide variety of procedures are in use and there is no research which shows that one system is either more productive scientifically, or more cost-effective in bringing about valuable scientific research. New systems which may be considered should avoid the major defects of the system of peer review as now practised: the enormous waste of scientists' time, the great potential for conflicts of interest, and the inherent bias against innovation. The principal system which I have proposed here combines the best elements of peer review with the simplicity and efficiency of the use of a formula. Moreover, this formula based on peer review of performance incorporates all the elements for which the academic scientific establishment should be accountable to its patron, which is the public treasury. A final virtue of the proposed system is that it provides simple and convenient procedures through the use of numerical weighting factors for the policymaker to guide the support of scientific research as a whole.
