ArticleCMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne2018
Assessment of potential bias in research grant peer review in Canada.
Article in CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 45 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
45 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 155 citations in OpenAlex.
- Exploring Gender Bias in Six Key Domains of Academic Science: An Adversarial Collaboration.Psychological science in the public interest : a journal of the American Psychological Society · 2023Pooled it
- Applicants as reviewers: a mixed methods evaluation of the risks, benefits, and potential of distributed peer review for grant funding allocations.Research integrity and peer review · 2026Article
- Homophily in grant evaluations.Nature human behaviour · 2026Article
- Prestige at Play: University Hierarchies and the Reproduction of Funding Inequalities.Canadian review of sociology = Revue canadienne de sociologie · 2026Article
- Gender and disciplinary differences in grant proposal peer review: Content and sentiment in 39,280 reports.PloS one · 2026Article
- Promoting informed health choices: the long and winding road.Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine · 2025Article
- Research funding challenges in Brazil: researchers' perceptions from a public institution of professional education.Frontiers in research metrics and analytics · 2025Article
- How to be an effective ally.Journal of cellular physiology · 2024Review
- What factors are associated with the research productivity of primary care researchers in Canada? A qualitative study.BMC health services research · 2024Article
- Review
- Factors affecting women scientists' retention and progress in STEM fields in the UAE: A cross-sectional study.F1000Research · 2024Article
- An experimental study of simulated grant peer review: Gender differences and psychometric characteristics of proposal scores.PloS one · 2024Article
- Article
- Gender shapes the formation of review paper collaborations in microbiology.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Review
- Scientists' perception of pilot study quality was influenced by statistical significance and study design.Journal of clinical epidemiology · 2023Article
- Gender differences in peer reviewed grant applications, awards, and amounts: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Research integrity and peer review · 2023Review
- Article
- Article
- Family Supportive Supervisor Behaviors Moderate Associations between Work Stress and Exhaustion: Testing the Job Demands-Resources Model in Academic Staff at an Austrian Medical University.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Strategies for inclusive grantmaking.Nature medicine · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPeer review is used to determine what research is funded and published, yet little is known about its effectiveness, and it is suspected that there may be biases. We investigated the variability of peer review and factors influencing ratings of grant applications.
methodsWe evaluated all grant applications submitted to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research between 2012 and 2014. The contribution of application, principal applicant and reviewer characteristics to overall application score was assessed after adjusting for the applicant's scientific productivity.
resultsAmong 11 624 applications, 66.2% of principal applicants were male and 64.1% were in a basic science domain. We found a significant nonlinear association between scientific productivity and final application score that differed by applicant gender and scientific domain, with higher scores associated with past funding success and
interpretationThere is evidence of bias in peer review of operating grants that is of sufficient magnitude to change application scores from fundable to nonfundable. This should be addressed by training and policy changes in research funding.
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.