What to Do About Review
13/07/10 14:38 Filed in: GenomeWeb Daily Scan
Submitted by S. Pelech - Kinexus on Tue, 07/13/2010 - 14:38.
The peer-review system works the best when the referees are willing to devote a great deal of expertise and care into scrutinizing a manuscript for publication or a grant application for funding. With the explosion of submitted manuscripts, the number of potential reviewers willing to expend the time for such undertakings has apparently declined. This is especially evident with grant reviews. On the one hand, the amount and types of information requested for inclusion in grant applications by agencies has steadily escalated in the past two decades. On the other hand, fewer grant applications are sent out for external reviews, and are judged by internal grant panel members that are overloaded with applications to review and often do not possess the best expertise to judge these applications. Personally, I have seen a dramatic decline in the quality of the reviews of my own grant applications, and I hear the same concerns from my colleagues. In view of this, it would seem that the best science is no longer necessarily funded and much of the published science is incremental, redundant and flawed.
Link to the original blog post.
The peer-review system works the best when the referees are willing to devote a great deal of expertise and care into scrutinizing a manuscript for publication or a grant application for funding. With the explosion of submitted manuscripts, the number of potential reviewers willing to expend the time for such undertakings has apparently declined. This is especially evident with grant reviews. On the one hand, the amount and types of information requested for inclusion in grant applications by agencies has steadily escalated in the past two decades. On the other hand, fewer grant applications are sent out for external reviews, and are judged by internal grant panel members that are overloaded with applications to review and often do not possess the best expertise to judge these applications. Personally, I have seen a dramatic decline in the quality of the reviews of my own grant applications, and I hear the same concerns from my colleagues. In view of this, it would seem that the best science is no longer necessarily funded and much of the published science is incremental, redundant and flawed.
Link to the original blog post.