Peer Review Conference in Prague

The Czech Science Foundation (GACR) together with the European Science Foundation (ESF) and the European Heads of Research Councils (EuroHORCs) organised an international conference on Peer Review - Its Present and Future State which was held in Prague on October 12-13, 2006.
The aim of the conference was to analyze contemporary trends in the evaluation of scientific project proposals, to compare approaches used by individual funding agencies in performing peer review and to outline the future forms and specifics of the peer review process. The main focus was on peer review as performed in funding agencies and evaluation bodies; however, attention was also paid to peer review in the process of publishing scientific results in journals.

The conference was organised around three main themes:

  1. Assessment and selection of grant proposals
  2. Evaluation of institutions and programmes
  3. Peer review process in scientific publishing

The conference brought together research policy makers and managers as well as experts in evaluation processes from Europe and from around the world.

Programme Committee:

Peter Nijkamp – President of EuroHORCs
Bertil Andersson - Chief Executive of ESF
Josef Syka – President of GACR

Programme of the conference and invited speakers

(name, institution and title of presentation):

Plenary Session: Role of the peer review in the new scientific landscape; the notion of excellence

G. Stroud - European Commission
Evaluation rules and procedures under the EU framework programme for research and technological development: the current state of play and future developments

T. Scarpa - Centre for Scientific Review at the National Institutes of Health
NIH peer review: challenges and opportunities

P. Campbell - Nature
Pressures on peer review at Nature journals

K. Mehlhorn - University of Saarland / Max-Planck- Institute for Computer Science
Peer review in the electronic age

S. Hornbostel - Humboldt University / Institute for Research Information and Quality Assurance
Peer review: in the core healthy or chronically ill?

J. O´Reilly - Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
Risk, adventure and the tyranny of peer review

Session A1: Assessment and selection of proposals: methodologies and processes

H. Bruun - Helsinki University of Technology
Evaluating interdisciplinary research proposals: the case of the Academy of Finland

O.K. Kwon and J. Lim - Korea Science and Engineering Foundation
Reorganization of evaluation system at KOSEF, Korea

P. Chráska and J. Syka – Czech Science Foundation - GACR
Peer Review in the Czech Science Foundation experiences and challenges

N. Yetis, O. Cebeci, A.Z. Oruc - Scientific and Technological Research Council (Tubitak)
Effective evaluation and funding of research projects (Tubitak)

Session A2: European level peer review; peer review of networking activities: international

L. Grivell - European Molecular Biology Organisation
Peer review at EMBO

F. Fedi - COST
Assessment, monitoring and final evaluation of COST actions

L. Allen - Wellcome Trust
Looking for landmarks´: the importance of post-award peer review

Session A3: Evaluation of institutions

R. van Duinen - European Science Foundation
Review of research institutes and programmes; experience and reflections

L. Devenon and J.-Y. Perron – IFREMER (French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea)
Evaluation of research units at IFREMER

A. Bertin - University of Bologna
The evaluation experience of the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics: state-of art and open problems

T. Lery and A. Shearer - Irish Centre for High-End Computing
Avoiding double peer review in the provision of scarce infrastructure

Session B1: Assessment and selection of proposals: global challenges and national practices

Ch. Schneider - Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
The worst form of deciding on grant proposals (DFG)

M. He - National Natural Science Foundation of China
Discussion on peer review of grant applications in NSFC

D.S. Kang and D. P. Min - Korea Research Foundation
Assessment system for grant proposals in Korea

Session B2: European level peer review; peer review of networking activities: collaboration of national research funding agencies

R. Väyrynen – Academy of Finland
Nordic cooperation

I. Aram – National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRC)
ERA-net

R. Novak – Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
EUROCORES

J. P. Henriet - Ghent University
EUROCORES

B. Scholz - Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
EURYI

Session B3: Evaluation of institutions cont.

P. Omling - Swedish Research Council Linnaeus Grants – university funding in national competitions

N. Haeffner-Cavaillon – National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm)
Peer review and bibliometrics

R. Rodrigo – Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
The role of institutional evaluation in the CSIC strategic planning

Session C1: Science policy context for excellent peer review

I.Halliday – European Science Foundation
Does peer review exist?

Ch. Caswill - University of Exeter
Reasons for continuity and pressures for change: the scope for fresh thinking on peer review

K. Zinoecker, M. Stampfer - Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF)
Peer review – and beyond?

Session C2: Language, metrics, impact – cultures of peer review in the Humanities

A.Nederhof - Centre for Science and Technology Studies of Leiden University
Quantitative assessment of research performance, peer review, and the role of language in the humanities

E. Reale - Institute for Economic Research on Firms and Growth of the National Research Council
Peer review and humanities: strength and weaknesses for institutional evaluation purposes

M. Worton - University College London (UCL)
Of models and metrics: the UK debate on assessing Humanities research

J. de Haan - University of Groningen
How reliable are journal impact scores as duality indicator? Evidence for the field of economics

Plenary session: Global Contexts of Peer Review

A.L. Bement - National Science Foundation
The reason and reach of merit review at the U.S. National Science Foundation

B. Nordén - Chalmers University of Technology
Peer review and young research careers: EURYI scheme

D. Esteve - European Research Council
Peer review system of the European Research Council

M. Ono - Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
JSPS´s application review system – present and future

S. Simpson - The Science Magazine
Exploring the limits of peer review in science publishing