Reviewing a Grant Proposal

Peer-review panels, or, as they are often called in the US, study sections are collegial groups of experts in a field of study that are composed by the funding agencies with the prupose of evaluating merits of applications for funding. In the US, such peer-review panels are employed by the federal funding agencies (such as the NIH, NSF, VA, OR DoD ) or various public or private foundations or associations that fund research. Being invited to serve on a peer-review panel is an honor because it means that guys with money consider you an expert. You can put the review service on your CV and thus appear smart and respected.. Serving on such panel is always educational and also a whole lot of fun.

Despite the appearance of collegiality, the study sections/review panel are never fair. As a matter of fact, they are an incarnation of unfairness. They are dominated by strong opinionated personalities, crowd psychology, prejudice, blatant carelessness for the applicants, personal ambitions of the members of the review panel, misinterpretations of regulations, and many other sins. Usually, being invited to serve on such a panel means that you yourself have been abused by such panels for a long enough time for them to beleive that you are ready to abuse others (abused often become abusers themselves). If you feel satisfied and happy after serving on a peer-review panel, then congratualtions, your corruption as a human being is complete and you now can officially list yourself among low lives. Study sections is where human spirit deteriorates completely.

• When you review a grant proposal, make sure that the applicant does not say absolutely crazy things. There is always a risk that the applicant is insane or illiterate, and if you miss major inconsistencies or errors in a grant proposal, you will be blamed along with the applicant. So save your skin and use your best professional judgement to ensure that there is no total craziness in the application. Remember that crazy stuff may be subtle. It is still your job to discover it.
• You want the applicants who are your buddies or who you want to kiss up to get the money (do not forget to quietly mention to them that you "thoroughly enjoyed reading their exceptionally strong grant proposal" - it is illegal to do so, but noone really enforces the rule). You also do not want the applicants that you do not know, do not care about, or frankly dislike to NOT get the money. Do everything possible to make sure that goal is achieved.
• If a grant proposal that you are reviewing is not from one of your buddies or if you just dislike it for no reason, then, of course,
  • "the data are not convincing" (or "repeating already known observations by the authors of the manuscript and other groups")
  • "the approaches proposed are mundane" (or "not sufficiently proven and therefore not reliable")
  • "the overall proposal is unfocused" (or "too narrowly focused on details") and
  • "lacks novelty" (or "proposes a concept that is not sufficiently supported by the existing body of data" - thus too novel but unsupported)
  • "the proposed experimetns are too simplistic" (or "overwhelmingly complex")
• In you criticisms, avoid specifics as much as possible, make statements that are as general as possible. The critiques that are overly generalized are particularly disarming, as they are impossible to respond to. If you can diss or support (depending on your wishes) a grant on a specific point, that is even better, but this route often requires too much work to bother with.
• Remeber, this fight is not for journal space or fame or the fact tat the authors might be as smart as you are. It is about money. So go ahead and be as unfair, destructive, and humiliating as you possibly can in preventing the applicants from getting the money. Alternatively, appear as supportive, praising, and pleased as you can if you want the grant ot be funded. At the same time, make sure to appear thoughtful, doubtful, relaxed, concerned, and supportive to the review panel; do not behave adamantly; in other words, to not turn the rest of the review panel against yourself.
• Make an individual decision whether to fight or give up if your opinion goes against the rest of the panel and/or the panel's chairperson. If you agree with them when they are wrong, you will make the rest of the panel pleased, but you will sell your sole to the devil. If you loudly voice your unpopular opinion, they will all hate you (let me assure you, they will, especially because many of the so-called experts on every panel are just ignorant, arrogant and incompetent jerks), they will try to hurt you later on, and likely will never invite you to serve on this panel again.
• Read Overall Remarks