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)

EUGENE GARFIELD: Refereeing and Peer Review. Part 3. How the Peer Review of Research-Grant Proposals Works and What Scientists Say About It

26 GARFIELD: REFEREEING AND PEER REVIEW, PART 1 cy using some form of informal peer review "enshrined" its version, "without any thought, examination, or analysis,...[as] 'THE peer review' system."

8 As Atkinson and Blanpied note, however, it was primarily through peer review that scientists convinced the government that the public interest would best be served "if scientists...retained decisive influence over how public funds were spent to support scientific activities."

9 The assumption was— and is—that since few in public office have the expertise to determine, from a technical standpoint, which projects are most deserving, the task of evaluating research proposals should fall to scientists. The Public Health Service Act allowed for the provision of funds only to projects approved by the National Advisory Health Council or the National Advisory Cancer Council—the precursors of the current NIH system of National Advisory Committees.

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0 This method, with peer review as its cornerstone, served as a model for other government agencies, such as the NSF. Atkinson and Blanpied point out, as have many others, that in recent years, despite increases in levels of NSF funding, the total funding of science, in terms of real dollars, has declined.

9 There has not been a similar decline in funds or in buying power at the NIH, according to William F. Raub,

10 deputy director, but Raub does not dispute Levy's observation that 95 percent of competing applications recommended for funding received support in the mid-1960s, while only 30 to 40 percent receive funds today.

5 "Funding has gone up, but the number of those asking for funds has gone up even faster," Raub explains.

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0 And of those whose applications are okayed, most receive support at levels reduced from the amounts originally recommended.

5 Incidentally, an interview

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1 with Raub on the subject of misconduct in science was recently published in The Scientist.

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3 Still, until the early 1980s, scholars and the institutions with which they were affiliated abided by the consensus that peer review was the best method to ensure the fair distribution of the ever-smaller federal pie.

9 But in 1983 and 1984, 15 universities bypassed the peer-review system and obtained more than $100 million in special authorizations and appropriations for new facilities directly from the US Congress; some even hired professional lobbyists to assist them

9.

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4 Peer Review: Love It or Leave It? John Silber, president, Boston University, in a comment reported in Science News, justified his institution's abandonment of accepted channels by charging that the peer-review system is an old-boy network that preferentially funds some 20 institutions.

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4 In calling for reforms to the peer-review system, Robert L. Sinsheimer, chancellor, University of California, Santa Cruz, said that peer review perpetuates the status quo.

15 And according to a recent report in Chemical A Engineering News, Senator Dennis DeConcini from Arizona claimed that "50 percent of all federal R&D [research and development] funding was put into the hands of 16 eastern and West Coast universities" in the 1984 fiscal year.

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6 (DeConcini represents an area that includes the University of Arizona, which secured $25 million from the Senate Appropriations Committee.) Whether or not there is research to support the claims of Silber, Sinsheimer, and others is a question that will be discussed in Part 4, but it is interesting to note that Columbia University—which can by no means be labeled a "have-not" institution—was among those that took shortcuts with the system. Atkinson and Blanpied note that Columbia officials secured $8 million in US Department of Energy (DOE) funds for the construction of a chemical research laboratory.

9 The tactics of those who have bypassed the peer-review system have predictably elicited a strong, negative response from those who have remained within the system. Roland W. Schmitt, chairman, National Science Board (the policy-making arm of the NSF), claims that, without peer review, US science is on "the fast track to mediocrity. "

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4 Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico worries that bypassing peer review may weaken the morale of scientists who have worked hard to develop meritorious proposals, only to find themselves politically out-