IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0239757.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Decision-making approaches used by UK and international health funding organisations for allocating research funds: A survey of current practice

Author

Listed:
  • Katie Meadmore
  • Kathryn Fackrell
  • Alejandra Recio-Saucedo
  • Abby Bull
  • Simon D S Fraser
  • Amanda Blatch-Jones

Abstract

Innovations in decision-making practice for allocation of funds in health research are emerging; however, it is not clear to what extent these are used. This study aims to better understand current decision-making practices for the allocation of research funding from the perspective of UK and international health funders. An online survey (active March-April 2019) was distributed by email to UK and international health and health-related funding organisations (e.g., biomedical and social), and was publicised on social media. The survey collected information about decision-making approaches for research funding allocation, and covered assessment criteria, current and past practices, and considerations for improvements or future practice. A mixed methods analysis provided descriptive statistics (frequencies and percentages of responses) and an inductive thematic framework of key experiences. Thirty-one responses were analysed, representing government-funded organisations and charities in the health sector from the UK, Europe and Australia. Four themes were extracted and provided a narrative framework. 1. The most reported decision-making approaches were external peer review, triage, and face-to-face committee meetings; 2. Key values underpinned decision-making processes. These included transparency and gaining perspectives from reviewers with different expertise (e.g., scientific, patient and public); 3. Cross-cutting challenges of the decision-making processes faced by funders included bias, burden and external limitations; 4. Evidence of variations and innovations from the most reported decision-making approaches, including proportionate peer review, number of decision-points, virtual committee meetings and sandpits (interactive workshop). Broadly similar decision-making processes were used by all funders in this survey. Findings indicated a preference for funders to adapt current decision-making processes rather than using more innovative approaches: however, there is a need for more flexibility in decision-making and support to applicants. Funders indicated the need for information and empirical evidence on innovations which would help to inform decision-making in research fund allocation.

Suggested Citation

  • Katie Meadmore & Kathryn Fackrell & Alejandra Recio-Saucedo & Abby Bull & Simon D S Fraser & Amanda Blatch-Jones, 2020. "Decision-making approaches used by UK and international health funding organisations for allocating research funds: A survey of current practice," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-17, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0239757
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0239757
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0239757
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0239757&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0239757?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carole J. Lee & Cassidy R. Sugimoto & Guo Zhang & Blaise Cronin, 2013. "Bias in peer review," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 64(1), pages 2-17, January.
    2. Stephen A Gallo & Afton S Carpenter & Scott R Glisson, 2013. "Teleconference versus Face-to-Face Scientific Peer Review of Grant Application: Effects on Review Outcomes," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(8), pages 1-9, August.
    3. David Adam, 2019. "Science funders gamble on grant lotteries," Nature, Nature, vol. 575(7784), pages 574-575, November.
    4. David Kaplan & Nicola Lacetera & Celia Kaplan, 2008. "Sample Size and Precision in NIH Peer Review," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 3(7), pages 1-3, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Richard R Snell, 2015. "Menage a Quoi? Optimal Number of Peer Reviewers," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(4), pages 1-14, April.
    2. Jürgen Janger & Nicole Schmidt-Padickakudy & Anna Strauss-Kollin, 2019. "International Differences in Basic Research Grant Funding. A Systematic Comparison," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 61664, August.
    3. Meyer, Matthias & Waldkirch, Rüdiger W. & Duscher, Irina & Just, Alexander, 2018. "Drivers of citations: An analysis of publications in “top” accounting journals," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 24-46.
    4. Lawson, Cornelia & Salter, Ammon, 2023. "Exploring the effect of overlapping institutional applications on panel decision-making," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(9).
    5. Feliciani, Thomas & Morreau, Michael & Luo, Junwen & Lucas, Pablo & Shankar, Kalpana, 2022. "Designing grant-review panels for better funding decisions: Lessons from an empirically calibrated simulation model," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(4).
    6. Andrada Elena Urda-Cîmpean & Sorana D. Bolboacă & Andrei Achimaş-Cadariu & Tudor Cătălin Drugan, 2016. "Knowledge Production in Two Types of Medical PhD Routes—What’s to Gain?," Publications, MDPI, vol. 4(2), pages 1-16, June.
    7. Oleksiyenko, Anatoly V., 2023. "Geopolitical agendas and internationalization of post-soviet higher education: Discursive dilemmas in the realm of the prestige economy," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    8. Randa Alsabahi, 2022. "English Medium Publications: Opening or Closing Doors to Authors with Non-English Language Backgrounds," English Language Teaching, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 15(10), pages 1-18, October.
    9. Yuetong Chen & Hao Wang & Baolong Zhang & Wei Zhang, 2022. "A method of measuring the article discriminative capacity and its distribution," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(6), pages 3317-3341, June.
    10. Qianjin Zong & Yafen Xie & Jiechun Liang, 2020. "Does open peer review improve citation count? Evidence from a propensity score matching analysis of PeerJ," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(1), pages 607-623, October.
    11. Thomas Feliciani & Junwen Luo & Lai Ma & Pablo Lucas & Flaminio Squazzoni & Ana Marušić & Kalpana Shankar, 2019. "A scoping review of simulation models of peer review," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(1), pages 555-594, October.
    12. Chiara Franzoni & Paula Stephan & Reinhilde Veugelers, 2022. "Funding Risky Research," Entrepreneurship and Innovation Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 103-133.
    13. David Card & Stefano DellaVigna, 2020. "What Do Editors Maximize? Evidence from Four Economics Journals," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(1), pages 195-217, March.
    14. Eric Libby & Leon Glass, 2010. "The Calculus of Committee Composition," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(9), pages 1-8, September.
    15. Weinhold, Ines & Gurtner, Sebastian, 2014. "Understanding shortages of sufficient health care in rural areas," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 118(2), pages 201-214.
    16. Minhyeok Lee, 2023. "Game-Theoretical Analysis of Reviewer Rewards in Peer-Review Journal Systems: Analysis and Experimental Evaluation using Deep Reinforcement Learning," Papers 2305.12088, arXiv.org.
    17. Mohammadamin Erfanmanesh & Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva, 2019. "Is the soundness-only quality control policy of open access mega journals linked to a higher rate of published errors?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(2), pages 917-923, August.
    18. Emanuel Kulczycki & Tim C. E. Engels & Janne Pölönen & Kasper Bruun & Marta Dušková & Raf Guns & Robert Nowotniak & Michal Petr & Gunnar Sivertsen & Andreja Istenič Starčič & Alesia Zuccala, 2018. "Publication patterns in the social sciences and humanities: evidence from eight European countries," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(1), pages 463-486, July.
    19. Vincent Chandler, 2019. "Identifying emerging scholars: seeing through the crystal ball of scholarship selection committees," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(1), pages 39-56, July.
    20. Kevin J. Boudreau & Karim R. Lakhani, 2016. "Innovation Experiments: Researching Technical Advance, Knowledge Production, and the Design of Supporting Institutions," Innovation Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(1), pages 135-167.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0239757. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.