Experience with NIH Peer Review: Researchers' Cynicism and Desire for Change

In the United States, peer review is central to the process by which many government agencies select research proposals for funding.' Although several different agency versions of peer review are practiced,2 they share one characteristic: Scientists judge both the potential value of proposed research projects and the ability of proposers to perform the studies. The premise is self-fulfilling. If scientists identified as peer specialists are best qualified to judge the scientific merit of proposals, then peer review becomes a tool of science policy; it both affects how policy is implemented and how decisions on public funding of research are justified. Many scientists strongly support peer review, at least in the abstract.3 Critics of peer review, however, often suggest that the abstract conception does not hold in practice. There are difficulties, they argue, in defining who are peers and therefore who is capable of evaluating a proposed study.4 Reviewers may be unable to remain disinterested when research funds are scarce and they are com-