The AHRC would be grateful if you could provide a review of the attached proposal in accordance with the guidance contained in the helptext. You are asked to bear in mind that the AHRC is seeking an expert academic review of the proposal, not a personal testimonial. You should exercise your knowledge, judgment and expertise to reach clear and soundly based decisions that are fair, objective and evidence based. Peer review relies on the free and honest exchange of views between specialists, and the Research Councils have jointly developed a Freedom of Information framework as a result.
Level of Confidence
Given the importance of high quality reviewer reports to the peer review process, it is essential that you can speak with confidence when assessing the proposal, justifying your comments in full. Perhaps because of the nature of the proposal, you may feel that you are only able to comment with confidence on some aspects of it. For this reason, confidence boxes are provided against each section. These boxes are the opportunity to tell us about your own confidence, or otherwise, in being able to make your assessment, not your confidence in the success of the proposal if it were funded. If, for any reason, you feel that you were not able to confidently assess the proposal, please advise the AHRC.
Assessment Criteria
In assessing applications you should ensure that the application meets the eligibility criteria of the scheme and should assess the proposal on the basis of its academic merit. The assessment criteria is outlined in the AHRC Research Funding Guide (Section 5: Assessment Criteria and Peer Review).
Due Date for Review Return
Please be aware that it is important that your review is received by the due date specified in order for AHRC to be able to progress the assessment of applications in accordance with the timescales published in the AHRC Funding Guide. If your review is received after the due date therefore, it will be unusable. If you anticipate having any difficulties meeting the due date specified, please contact the AHRC contact named under Reviewer Information in your review form for advice.
Conflict of Interest
It is vital that all reviewers, including technical reviewers, are seen to be completely impartial at all stages of the review process. You should not take part in the review of any proposal where a conflict of interest may be constructed.
AHRC officers endeavour to identify conflicts of interest and will not select you as an assessor if there is a clear conflict. Not all conflicts are obvious from the information we have available. If you consider you may have a conflict of interest you must contact the AHRC before proceeding with the review. It is important that you ensure you are eligible to review the proposal before undertaking the review. A list of conflicts that exclude you from assessing a proposal is included below. This is not an exhaustive list; if you are in any doubt about whether or not you should assess a proposal, please contact the Programmes Coordinator who has approached you for this review.
Examples of Conflicts of Interests
A conflict of interest occurs for a reviewer or panel member when you:
Are a personal friend or a relative of the applicant.
Are intending to submit or have already submitted a proposal to the same round of the competition for which you are being asked to provide a review. For schemes which operate without closing dates, if you have or are intending to submit a proposal within 3 months of when you are being asked to provide a review.
Are directly involved in the work that the applicant proposes to carry out and/or have assisted the applicant with their application for funding.
Are a current member of staff or a Professor Emeritus/Emerita at the same research organisation as the applicant, or at the proposed host institution for Fellowship proposals? If you are at Cambridge or Oxford University you should not review proposals from any college at your institution. Please note that staff employed by a member institution of London University or University of Wales may review proposals from other member institutions.
Have collaborated on a research project, or worked closely with the applicant in the last five years.
Have been employed at the same department as the investigator(s) in the last 12 months.
Were the PhD Supervisor for the investigator(s).
Are asked to review an application in which your RO is named as a partner institution.
Have a vested interest in the research, for example you are a general editor of the series to which he work that is the subject of the proposal will contribute, or a curator of a gallery where the work will be exhibited.
Have been approached and agreed to be a member of a committee connected with a research project, for example an advisory group or steering committee, you should not - if approached - also act as a reviewer for that project.
Are invited to sit on a panel which will moderate an application that you have reviewed.
Please note that, the restrictions which apply to the Principal Investigator, in terms of research organisation, past research organisation, past collaborations and any other types of conflicts of interest as mentioned above, apply equally to the Co-Investigator(s) on an application.
Assessment Process
The AHRC is committed to assessment by process of peer review. The assessment process is outlined in the AHRC Research Funding Guide (Section 5: Assessment and Peer Review).
Comments in this section will not be sent to the applicant but will be provided to the Peer Review Committee or Panel.
Knowledge of the Applicant
Indicate briefly in what capacity you know the applicant(s) and their work. If there are any potential conflicts of interest, please contact the BBSRC Office before reading the proposal. Examples of a conflict of interest include:
Employed by the same institution as the applicant(s).
An active ongoing collaboration with an applicant(s)
Working closely with the applicant(s), for example as a PhD supervisor
Holding a current position on the governing body of or an honorary position within the institution(s) of the applicant(s)
In receipt of personal remuneration in excess of £5,000 per annum from the applicant’s organisation
Personal/family relationship with the applicant(s)
We do not consider the following to be a conflict of interest
Publications with applicant(s) for collaborations that have concluded
Holding a different scientific view to the applicant(s)
Your areas of expertise
Indicate briefly the areas of your expertise that are relevant to your assessment. Please indicate any areas of the proposal that you consider you are not qualified to assess, to enable the Office to select additional referees in these areas.
This section seeks to assess the level of expertise that you judge yourself to hold in the areas listed. Please select a level. If you wish to clarify your responses please use the free text box. (This section may not be visible as it is not applicable to all review requests).
Please comment (using the *narrative text field provided), declaring any interests that the funder should be made aware of in considering your review.
When you have completed your comments (please indicate ‘None’ or ‘NA’ if there are not any interests that MRC should be aware of), select the “Save” option from the top of the screen, which will save the information input into the Je-S proposal.
Please note that typing into a text box is not detectable by the system and is regarded as system inactivity. Please remember to ‘Save’ text regularly.
*This (narrative text) field must be completed using:
No more than 4000 characters, including spaces, tabs and character returns (2 characters).
Only the standard Je-S character set should be used.
No specialist characters and symbols (e.g. mathematical symbols) because these may not transfer successfully to other computer systems.
For further information regarding Peer Review at the MRC (and access to the MRC Reviewers Handbook), please see the MRC website: http://www.mrc.ac.uk/funding/peer-review/peer-review-at-the-mrc/
Comments in this section will not be sent to the applicant but will be provided to the Assessment Panel.
Knowledge of the Applicant
Indicate briefly in what capacity you know the applicant(s) and their work. If there are any potential conflicts of interest, please contact the NC3Rs Office before reading the proposal. Examples of a conflict of interest include:
Employed by the same institution as the applicant(s)
Actively involved in research collaborations with the applicant(s)
Working closely with the applicant(s), for example as a co-author or PhD supervisor, or has worked closely in the last 4 years.
Holding a current position on the governing body of or an honorary position within the institution(s) of the applicant(s)
In receipt of personal remuneration in excess of £5,000 per annum from the applicant’s organisation
Personal/family relationship with the applicant(s)
Your area of expertise
Indicate briefly the areas of your expertise that are relevant to your assessment. Please indicate any areas of the proposal that you consider you are not qualified to assess, to enable the Office to select additional referees in these areas.
Other
Please indicate other potential conflicts of interests, such as if you have submitted a proposal to the same call for applications to the NC3Rs, or if there is significant overlap with ongoing work in your own laboratory. These criteria would not exclude you from reviewing the proposal, but should be noted.
Area of Expertise
In view of your experience and knowledge please select the option (high or/ medium) that you consider best describes your level of expertise in the subject area of this proposal.
The NERC value your review of the proposal regardless of the level of expertise selected.
You may choose to comment on the whole proposal, or on aspects where you have particular expertise. Indicate this by selecting either ‘whole proposal’ or ‘particular aspects’. Please use the ‘particular aspects’ option if you do not have at least medium expertise for the whole proposal.
If your comments are limited to certain parts of the proposal please use the relevant text box to explain the scientific area or other aspects that your comments address.
If you have selected to comment on the whole proposal, to avoid failing the system validation you must complete n/a in the text box.
Suggested Reviewers
Use the relevant text box to suggest other experts who you think could help in the peer review of this proposal. Reviewers can be UK or international, please provide names and contact details including email addresses if possible.
Thank you for your assistance, suggestions of names and contact details for reviewers are highly valued by the NERC. Please provide reviewer suggestions regardless of your grading of this proposal.
The information provided against these questions is confidential and will not be provided in the feedback given to the applicant to respond to.
If you have any conflicts of interest in assessing this proposal then please give details. STFC have adopted a code of practice for all those who assist in the work of Council which embraces the “Seven Principles of Public Life” drawn up by the Nolan Committee and endorsed by parliament. An important aspect of this code is the avoidance of any conflicts between personal interests and the interests of the STFC. In the context of Peer review of research proposals, a conflict of interest may arise, for example, if a reviewer had a close working relationship, or personal connections, with any individual(s) in the department from which a proposal originates. Such interests may be indirect and relate to immediate family members or any other persons living in the same household as the reviewer. The acid test is whether a member of the public, knowing the facts of the situation, might reasonably think the judgement could be influenced by the possibility of private of commercial gain. If you are unsure of a potential conflict you should contact the Research Councils for clarification. For further information please check the STFC website: https://stfc.ukri.org/funding/research-grants/peer-review-and-assessment/#collapseSix
For reviews on all but Ernest Rutherford Fellowship schemes please give details of your areas of expertise that are relevant to your review of this proposal. Because of the nature of the proposal you may feel that you are only able to comment on some aspects of it so please identify whether you are commenting on the proposal as a whole or if commenting on a particular area.
Please indicate your confidence level in assessing the proposal by ticking one of the available choices. If for any reason you feel that you are unable to confidently assess the proposal please advise STFC. Given the importance of high quality reviewer reports to the peer review process it is essential that you speak with confidence with respect to your assessment of the proposal, justifying your comments in full.