SocArXiv Papers | Targeted, actionable and fair: reviewer reports as feedback and its effect on ECR career choices

Abstract:  Previous studies of the use of peer review for the allocation of competitive funding agencies have concentrated on questions of efficiency and how to make the ‘best’ decision, by ensuring that successful applicants are also the more productive or visible in the long term. This paper examines the function of peer review by examining how it can be used as a participatory research governance tool by focusing on the function feedback plays in assisting in the development of ECR applicants. Using a combination of survey, interviews and linguistic-based coding of reviewer reports, this study explores how reviewer reports provided to unsuccessful applicants as an artefact of the peer-review decision making process, can be considered as a method of feedback. Specifically, it examines which components of this feedback underpinned their decisions to re-submit their grant applications following first-failure; change their research topics or withdraw from academia entirely. Peer review feedback, we argue, sends signals to applicants to encourage them to persist (continue) or switch (not continue) even when the initial application has failed. The results lead to identification of standards of feedback for funding agencies and peer-reviewers to promote when providing reviewer feedback to applicants as part of their peer review process. The results also highlight a function of peer review overlooked by current research which is not concentrated solely on the development of an outcome, to one that can be used effectively to support the development of individuals and their future research plans.