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Heterogeneity of Inter-Rater Reliabilities of Grant Peer Reviews and Its Determinants: A General Estimating Equations Approach

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  • Rüdiger Mutz
  • Lutz Bornmann
  • Hans-Dieter Daniel

Abstract

Background: One of the most important weaknesses of the peer review process is that different reviewers’ ratings of the same grant proposal typically differ. Studies on the inter-rater reliability of peer reviews mostly report only average values across all submitted proposals. But inter-rater reliabilities can vary depending on the scientific discipline or the requested grant sum, for instance. Goal: Taking the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) as an example, we aimed to investigate empirically the heterogeneity of inter-rater reliabilities (intraclass correlation) and its determinants. Methods: The data consisted of N = 8,329 proposals with N = 23,414 overall ratings by reviewers, which were statistically analyzed using the generalized estimating equations approach (GEE). Results: We found an overall intraclass correlation (ICC) of reviewer? ratings of ρ = .259 with a 95% confidence interval of [.249,.279]. In humanities the ICCs were statistically significantly higher than in all other research areas except technical sciences. The ICC in biosciences deviated statistically significantly from the average ICC. Other factors (besides the research areas), such as the grant sum requested, had negligible influence on the ICC. Conclusions: Especially in biosciences, the number of reviewers of each proposal should be increased so as to increase the ICC.

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  • Rüdiger Mutz & Lutz Bornmann & Hans-Dieter Daniel, 2012. "Heterogeneity of Inter-Rater Reliabilities of Grant Peer Reviews and Its Determinants: A General Estimating Equations Approach," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(10), pages 1-10, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0048509
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0048509
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Lutz Bornmann & Rüdiger Mutz & Hans-Dieter Daniel, 2010. "A Reliability-Generalization Study of Journal Peer Reviews: A Multilevel Meta-Analysis of Inter-Rater Reliability and Its Determinants," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(12), pages 1-10, December.
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    1. David Gurwitz & Elena Milanesi & Thomas Koenig, 2014. "Grant Application Review: The Case of Transparency," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(12), pages 1-6, December.
    2. David G Pina & Darko Hren & Ana Marušić, 2015. "Peer Review Evaluation Process of Marie Curie Actions under EU’s Seventh Framework Programme for Research," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-15, June.
    3. Rüdiger Mutz & Tobias Wolbring & Hans-Dieter Daniel, 2017. "The effect of the “very important paper” (VIP) designation in Angewandte Chemie International Edition on citation impact: A propensity score matching analysis," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 68(9), pages 2139-2153, September.
    4. Lawson, Cornelia & Geuna, Aldo & Finardi, Ugo, 2021. "The funding-productivity-gender nexus in science, a multistage analysis," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(3).
    5. Patrícia Martinková & František Bartoš & Marek Brabec, 2023. "Assessing Inter-rater Reliability With Heterogeneous Variance Components Models: Flexible Approach Accounting for Contextual Variables," Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, , vol. 48(3), pages 349-383, June.
    6. Elena A. Erosheva & Patrícia Martinková & Carole J. Lee, 2021. "When zero may not be zero: A cautionary note on the use of inter‐rater reliability in evaluating grant peer review," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 184(3), pages 904-919, July.
    7. Weixi Xie & Pengfei Jia & Guangyao Zhang & Xianwen Wang, 2024. "Are reviewer scores consistent with citations?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(8), pages 4721-4740, August.
    8. Patrícia Martinková & Dan Goldhaber & Elena Erosheva, 2018. "Disparities in ratings of internal and external applicants: A case for model-based inter-rater reliability," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(10), pages 1-17, October.
    9. Lutz Bornmann, 2015. "Interrater reliability and convergent validity of F1000Prime peer review," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 66(12), pages 2415-2426, December.
    10. Augusteijn, Hilde Elisabeth Maria & Wicherts, Jelte M. & Sijtsma, Klaas & van Assen, Marcel A. L. M., 2023. "Quality assessment of scientific manuscripts in peer review and education," OSF Preprints 7dc6a, Center for Open Science.
    11. Bayindir, Esra Eren & Gurdal, Mehmet Yigit & Saglam, Ismail, 2019. "A Game Theoretic Approach to Peer Review of Grant Proposals," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4).
    12. Jens Jirschitzka & Aileen Oeberst & Richard Göllner & Ulrike Cress, 2017. "Inter-rater reliability and validity of peer reviews in an interdisciplinary field," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(2), pages 1059-1092, November.

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