ArticlePloS one2014
The validation of peer review through research impact measures and the implications for funding strategies.
Article in PloS one, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Pooled it
- The costs of competition in distributing scarce research funds.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Article
- A retrospective analysis of the peer review of more than 75,000 Marie Curie proposals between 2007 and 2018.eLife · 2021Article
- Do extraordinary science and technology scientists balance their publishing and patenting activities?PloS one · 2021Article
- Administrative Discretion in Scientific Funding: Evidence from a Prestigious Postdoctoral Training Program.Research policy · 2020Article
- Article
- Low agreement among reviewers evaluating the same NIH grant applications.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2018Article
- Do funding applications where peer reviewers disagree have higher citations? A cross-sectional study.F1000Research · 2018Article
- How should novelty be valued in science?eLife · 2017Article
- Reviewer training to assess knowledge translation in funding applications is long overdue.Research integrity and peer review · 2017Article
- The Influence of Peer Reviewer Expertise on the Evaluation of Research Funding Applications.PloS one · 2016Article
- Editorial behaviors in peer review.SpringerPlus · 2016Article
- Peer Review Quality and Transparency of the Peer-Review Process in Open Access and Subscription Journals.PloS one · 2016Article
- Association of percentile ranking with citation impact and productivity in a large cohort of de novo NIMH-funded R01 grants.Molecular psychiatry · 2015Article
- Maximizing the return on taxpayers' investments in fundamental biomedical research.Molecular biology of the cell · 2015Article
- Examining the Predictive Validity of NIH Peer Review Scores.PloS one · 2015Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
There is a paucity of data in the literature concerning the validation of the grant application peer review process, which is used to help direct billions of dollars in research funds. Ultimately, this validation will hinge upon empirical data relating the output of funded projects to the predictions implicit in the overall scientific merit scores from the peer review of submitted applications. In an effort to address this need, the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) conducted a retrospective analysis of peer review data of 2,063 applications submitted to a particular research program and the bibliometric output of the resultant 227 funded projects over an 8-year period. Peer review scores associated with applications were found to be moderately correlated with the total time-adjusted citation output of funded projects, although a high degree of variability existed in the data. Analysis over time revealed that as average annual scores of all applications (both funded and unfunded) submitted to this program improved with time, the average annual citation output per application increased. Citation impact did not correlate with the amount of funds awarded per application or with the total annual programmatic budget. However, the number of funded applications per year was found to correlate well with total annual citation impact, suggesting that improving funding success rates by reducing the size of awards may be an efficient strategy to optimize the scientific impact of research program portfolios. This strategy must be weighed against the need for a balanced research portfolio and the inherent high costs of some areas of research. The relationship observed between peer review scores and bibliometric output lays the groundwork for establishing a model system for future prospective testing of the validity of peer review formats and procedures.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.