The European Science Foundation (ESF) today released a document expressing basic core principles and good practice guidelines for the peer review of funding proposals. The European Peer Review Guide (links to PDF) is intended mainly to help European funding bodies improve and harmonize their peer review procedures, but young scientists can learn a lot by skimming the document.
For those new to the funding system, the Guide provides an overview on the different types of funding programs in place around Europe and can help you decide which ones are the most appropriate for you to apply to. The Guide also offers a peek into the peer-review system and processes, and highlights the key criteria your application will be judged by.
If you're further along in your career, the Guide gives you insight in what it takes to be solicited as a peer reviewer. It also offers you a broad view of the grant evaluation process and a sense of your role and responsibilities. You will also find advice on how to handle and score applications for different types of funding. The guide highlights key conditions of the peer-review process you must comply with, such as integrity, absence of conflicts of interest, and respect for confidentiality.
"By virtue of involving human judgment, even the same peer review procedures can have variable outcomes," Cristina Marras of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) stated in a press release. "Peer review is the most widely used method for distributing research funding. So ... the Guide can help us minimise this inherent variability as much as possible; furthermore, it fosters harmonisation in international peer review."
The European Peer Review Guide was produced with input from more than 30 national research funding and research-performing organizations in 23 countries, including the European Research Council (ERC) and the European Commission.The Guide can be downloaded from the ESF Web site.
