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Positive feedback for distributed peer review

#Peer Review

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The Volkswagen Foundation's "Distributed Peer Review" experiment is well received by applicants, as a survey by the Research on Research Institute (RoRI) shows.

Within the funding program "Open Up - New Research Spaces for the Humanities and Cultural Studies", the Volkswagen Foundation is experimenting with a new form of peer review in which all applicants are also reviewers. The goal: to explore a fairer, faster, and more robust peer review process for research funding applications. The Foundation is working with Professors Tom Stafford and Stephen Pinfield from Research on Research Institute (RoRI) to ensure effective evaluation and reporting of the trial.

A survey of applicants revealed positive expectations of distributed peer review:

  • 85% find the distributed peer review process suitable.
  • 77% believe it will identify appropriate reviewers.
  • 74% trust it to be fair and to fund the best research.
  • 70%  believe the process will select more adventurous proposals than the conventional panel review.

More information can be found on the RoRI website under Researchers optimistic about Distributed Peer Review.

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Volkswagen Foundation experiments with new peer review method

In the current call of the funding initiative "Open Up – New Research Spaces for the Humanities and Cultural Studies", the foundation is testing a new review process for the first time: "Distributed Peer Review". In this interview, Dr. Hanna Denecke, team leader in the "Exploration" profile area, explains the experiment.

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