Document Analysis of Peer Review Criteria and Process in Science Foundation Ireland

Abstract

This project examines peer review decision-making processes, stakeholder concerns, and outcomes of Science Foundation Ireland Investigators Programme and Industry Fellowship Programme with the goal of improving the efficiency, transparency, and equity of scientific funding processes. The study also addresses related topics, such as transparency of process, implications for gender equity and early career researchers, the role of interdisciplinarity in peer review, the evaluation of economic and social impacts in grant proposals, and overall, what constitutes research excellence in Irish science. In this poster, we will present preliminary results of the first phase of the study: document analysis of decision letters in the past 5 years. A content analysis will be conducted in Summer 2018 to derive the reviewers’ criteria in successful and unsuccessful applications and mapped against demographic information of reviewers (anonymised), review scores, and other characteristics of the reviewers.