Peer-review is important in research to ensure the quality and integrity of research activity. It is also an important part of the research funding process both once you have submitted to the funder, but also within institutions before you submit your proposal.
Peer reviewing expertise
To improve the visibility of external funding peer review expertise within our academic community we have created separate categories for ‘Grant reviewer‘ and ‘Grant funding panel member‘ within the recognition section of the profiles in Worktribe. This will be searchable within the system, as an esteem type on your University web profile, and pull through to the Worktribe generated CV used in the promotions process. Previously these were included in the broader recognition types ‘advisory boards and panels’ and ‘reviewing’ activities. Worktribe searches to find staff who are peer reviewer and panel members for funders: Grant reviewer, Grant funding panel member
I have tried to identify the grant peer review activities and re-assign them to the new types – I would recommend reviewing your profiles on Worktribe to ensure I haven’t missed any. If you need to change the recognition type you can do this by opening the record to edit it and then selecting the correct type.
University research funding peer review process
The pilot peer review process was introduced in 2015, before being extended across all schools in 2016. This has been refined slightly over the years. All research project applications led by the University with a value over £75K and those with and early career researchers as the PI are required to go through the peer review process. For all other applications peer review can still be requested.
The peer review of the proposal can be arranged by your School Research and Innovation Manager, or you can request this directly from the project record on Worktribe via the peer review tab. The more time you allow for peer review the better to get good feedback and to develop your high quality proposal. Projects should be peer reviewed by two people: 1 person on the school quality panel (only 3 established to date: SEBE, SHSC, SACI) and another reviewer on the Worktribe list. The peer reviewer list contains academics and researchers who have experience of reviewing funding applications or who have attended the peer reviewer training.