A fair chance? How peer review impacts research grant applications

A study of over 10,000 grant applications in Canada revealed that bias influences the peer review process.

Recent efforts to increase the participation of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) have led to perceptions that women may be given an unfair advantage in research competitions and evaluation of grant applications. This study helped to address this misconception by investigating the factors that influence the ratings of grant applications and the variability of peer review.

Researchers used data from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to investigate whether reviewer gender, expertise, success rate, experience, scientific domain, conflict of interest and reviewer disagreement would influence ratings of grant applications.

All grant applications submitted to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research between 2012 and 2014 were included in the study.

After controlling for the applicant’s scientific productivity, the contribution of the application, the principal applicant, and the reviewer characteristics to the overall application score were evaluated. Using descriptive statistics, 11,624 applications were evaluated. 66.2% of the principal applicants were men.

There was a significant association between scientific productivity and final application score that depended on scientific area as well as gender, with women receiving lower scores. Results revealed scientific productivity was systematically lower for women and younger applicants. Also, women with past success rates equivalent to men obtained lower application scores, with the difference increasing with increasing past success rates. The scoring difference by gender was greater in applied science applications. Lower scores were also associated with older applicants and those who were reviewed only by women. These biases present in application scoring can directly influence funding. The good news is that this is a problem that can be addressed by training, policy changes and continuous assessment to ensure equitable funding.

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Study Details

Sample size(s): 11, 624 grant applicants

Participants: N/A

Design: Review study

Reference:

Tamblyn, R., Girard, N., Qian, C. J., & Hanley, J. (2018). Assessment of potential bias in Research Grant Peer Review in Canada. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 190(16). https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.170901

Summarized by WinSights team member(s): Shohini Ghose