News

University launches Peer Review College

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 16:11:00 GMT

On 27 February 2012, the University launched the Peer Review College to support high quality research funding bids within the institution.

Over 100 researchers across the University have been invited to become members of the College on the basis of their experience of applying for research funding and of reviewing research grant proposals for external funding bodies.  The Launch Event provided the opportunity for members to learn about the background to the initiative and to contribute to the proposals for how it will operate.   

Professor Paul Hayes, Dean of Science, introduced the event and thanked everyone for their work as external reviewers and for joining the College.  He explained that, in response to increases in application numbers, the significant cost of peer review, limited budgets and falling success rates, funding bodies in the UK are taking a number of steps to ‘manage demand’; that is both to improve the quality and reduce the number of applications submitted.  Whilst some of these steps involve changes to funding streams and mechanisms, the expectation is that institutions also need to take responsibility for ‘managing demand’, which, for us, means a focus on making sure that the quality of applications is as high as it possibly can be.

The Director of Research, Professor Tara Dean, then illustrated our responses to this expectation, which include events such as the EU Funding Day, the Principal Investigators’ Development Programme and the ‘Grant Hothouses’.  The Peer Review College will make a significant additional contribution by providing a greater critical mass of expertise to draw upon than might be available within individual Faculties or departments.  Peer Review College members will be asked to peer review grant applications and provide recommendations on specific funding calls where we may only be able to submit one or two applications.  Peer Review College members will be supported through a series of training workshops over the next few months.

The University is also adopting a more structured approach to the peer review and approval of grant proposals, building on existing good practice across the institution.  The new system will start from Monday 2 April 2012 and, through the Peer Review College, will use the considerable expertise and experience of the University’s research community to ensure that we submit funding proposals of the highest quality.  Further information on the Peer Review College and Approval Process can be found on the Research Support Website.

Support for the Peer Review College and the new review and approval scheme was very positive, with members highlighting the benefits to proposal development and the support it would provide to early career researchers, in particular.