1. Peer Review Process and the
Peer Review College
Sue Carver
Head of Research Careers, Training and Peer Review
20 January 2012

2. Decision Making Structures
5 Principles that underpin our decision making
structures
• Appropriate engagement with stakeholders
• Appropriate pace and flexibility of decision making
• Delegating authority and trusting people to make
decisions
• Better coordination of information flows to inform
decisions
• Reduction of real or perceived barriers to
interdisciplinary research

3. Decision Making Structures
Key areas
• Sifting
• Harmonised grading scale
• Greater emphasis on peer review and PI Response
• Prioritisation Panels
• Open deadlines for Research Grants and
Fellowships
• Training for College Members. Newsletters.

5. How Research Organisations can help
• In-house Peer Review using AHRC guidance for Peer Review
College Members
• Follow the review headings set out in the Research Funding
Guide:
• Quality and Importance
• People
•Management of the Project
•Value for Money
•Outputs, Dissemination, and Impact
• Je-S Reviewer Protocols and Help Text to be available to all Je-
S users

6. Who are our reviewers?
• AHRC Peer Review College (PRC)
• Off-College Reviewers
How do we select reviewers?
•Primary consideration is to find appropriate match of
reviewer expertise to subject matter of the application.
Important to keep JeS record up-to-date.
•First choice is to find subject expert reviewers from
within membership of the College
•If there is no suitable match on the College, then we
have the flexibility to approach subject experts from
outside membership of the College

7. The Peer Review College
• AHRC Peer Review College (PRC) established 2004
with an initial membership of 460 research active
academics
• Membership now stands at approx. 1350. Recent
recruitment to ensure coverage for Themes.
• Members can belong to one or more groups:
•Academic
•International
•Strategic Reviewers
•Non- HEI
•Knowledge Transfer
•Technical

8. Membership of the PRC
Membership period
•Members appointed for 4yrs at a time, with reappointment considered based on
reviewer performance and subject coverage
•Members can resign at any point
Workload
•Review Quota of 8 per year, and no more than 4 per quarter (although some
exceptionally do more than this). Technical Reviewers have separate quota of 8
technical reviews per year.
Availability
•Members can make themselves unavailable (time off from review requests) to allow for
particularly busy periods, research leave, holiday, illness etc…
Performance
•Acceptance/Decline rate (including late responses, or where there has been no
response) and Requests to re-write (either due to lack of sufficient detail or
inappropriate content) are monitored

9. Benefits of PRC membership
For the individual
•Membership of the College is an indicator of esteem within the Arts and Humanities
Community
•Members gain insight into how to best frame their own research applications
•Opportunities to sit on Peer Review Panels and other bodies, and to engage with wider
work of AHRC
For their organisation
•Esteem indicator for Research Organisations and individual departments
•College members are well placed to advise on internal assessment of funding
applications prior to submission, and to mentor colleagues on peer review processes.
For the AHRC
•The College is a valuable vehicle for engaging and consulting with our subject
community
•The AHRC is provided with a professional and well motivated body of subject experts
to supply reviews.