The Scientific Peer Review Process for Institute of Education Sciences Research Grant Applications

• In Event: Institute of Education Sciences: Funding Opportunities, the Grant Application Process, and Scientific Peer Review

Abstract

For the third presentation, staff from IES’ Office of Science will describe the scientific peer review for research grant applications. The presentation will highlight the fact that peer review activities and staff are deliberately situated in the Office of Science, outside of the research Centers (NCER, NCSER) that fund research grants, provide technical assistance to applicants, and work with grantees. This structure helps to ensure that peer review is as objective as possible. We will address the roles of Office of Science staff and program officers from the research centers during the review and post-review phases of the grant funding process.
Office of Science staff are responsible for the major activities involved in the review process, including establishing review panels, identifying and recruiting reviewers to serve on those panels, assigning applications to panels, assigning reviewers to applications, and preparing substantive instructions and information for reviewers. Office of Science staff attend the panel meetings to ensure that the panels are reviewing applications according to the requirements and recommendations outlined in the Requests for Applications. Program officers attend panel meetings as observers but are not involved with managing the review process. After the meetings, the Office of Science provides peer review information to the Centers for funding decisions. Office of Science staff are not involved in funding decisions.

Specific information to be presented about the research grant review process will include the stages of application processing and peer review, including some practical information about how applicants receive information about their applications through IES’ online peer review system, PRIMO. We will address how resubmissions are handled, initial screening processes that all applications need to go through before they can be forwarded for peer review, how applications are assigned to review panels and to individual reviewers on those panels, how applications are scored and our triage process for identifying the most competitive applications. We will discuss how potential peer reviewers are identified and recruited for peer review panels, and how reviewers are trained. We will also describe the different review panels, the difference between standing and single-session panels, and the difference between principal panel members, rotating panel members, and ad hoc reviewers. Finally, we will provide some historical information on the numbers of applications that IES has reviewed and funded.

IES strives to create a transparent and fair peer review process, and our overall goal in this session is to provide attendees with information that will help them develop responsive and competitive research applications that can result in successful research projects to inform education policy, practice, and future research.

Authors

• Lisa Bridges, Institute of Education Sciences
  Presenting Author

• E. Danielle Roberts, Institute of Education Sciences
  Presenting Author