This is the text of a Correspondence published in Nature (460, 949; 2009) by Conor O’Carroll of the Irish Universities Association:

Your News story ‘Italy outsources peer review to NIH’ (Nature 459, 900; 2009) highlights a problem common to many countries with a small population of research scientists. Ireland can be held up as a successful model in addressing this problem because, over the past eight years, funding agencies have moved to fully international peer review.

A few years ago, important research and development ventures were set up with a new infrastructure to attract talented people from abroad. The use of only Irish peer reviewers to allocate millions of research euros to a small number of universities could not stand up to the principles of objectivity, transparency and perceived fairness and would have led to conflicts of interest. Despite initial opposition, exclusively international review is now accepted; researchers want to be benchmarked internationally as well as nationally.

The typical process for research evaluation in Ireland is to consult four or five reviewers by mail for each proposal. Proposals are then assessed by a panel of invited experts, who meet in Ireland. Reviewers may be sourced through international funding agencies, or by letting applicants nominate experts themselves.

Some Italian scientists in your News story express reservations. They may well have a point, as US reviewers will probably not have any detailed knowledge of how research is conducted in Italy. One approach is to have nationals involved, either as observers or in a formal non-voting role. For example, the Irish Health Research Board organizes international mail reviews and panels, but the chair of each is Irish. They cannot participate in selection, but ensure that the correct procedures are followed and can explain the national research-funding policy. International panel members appreciate this local input, which helps them think outside their own national funding system.

Reviewing criteria often include the quality of the project, the researchers and their institutions, and the social and economic impact of the research. It is important that international reviewers focus on the quality of the first two, as the standing of institutions and the probable impact of a project can be harder for them to evaluate. Also, they should not get involved in detailed budgetary considerations, as these are strictly national.

Things have changed radically in Ireland’s research over the past ten years. In 2008, the country appeared for the first time in a list of ‘Top countries in all fields’ (ranked by citations per paper). We are now placed 19th, up from 36th place in 2003. I believe that international peer review played a significant part in this development.

This text is from a recent Editorial in Nature (460, 667; 2009):

In a depressingly familiar display of irresponsible politicking, the US House of Representatives has taken aim at three studies funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Representative Darrell Issa (Republican, California) introduced an amendment killing the projects on 24 July, during a debate on the NIH’s 2010 budget. The House passed the amendment by a voice vote.

Issa was unhappy that the studies looked at substance abuse and HIV risk behaviour, and that the subjects were outside the United States. One focused on Russian alcoholics, another on female sex workers in China and a third on female and transgender prostitutes in Thailand. All three passed muster with NIH peer reviewers, and together would cost about $5 million over five years. Issa wanted that money to be spent at home, and complained that HIV had been heavily studied already. But his reasoning is specious: alcoholism, prostitution and HIV do not respect borders, and any behavioural information that could help slow the transmission of HIV is crucial. Some 33 million people are infected worldwide, and a vaccine is nowhere in sight.

Issa’s tactic is not new. Since 2003, conservative House Republicans have tried at least five times to strip funding from peer-reviewed projects that drew their ire. Such meddling threatens to undermine the peer-review process as well as potentially eroding the public’s trust that science is above politics.

Also worrying is the House Democrats’ acquiescence to Issa’s amendment. Democrats facing tough re-election bids hoped to dodge Republican attacks in media adverts in their home districts that might have resulted from opposing Issa. Their assumption is that the amendment can be quietly removed when House and Senate negotiators meet to square their versions of the NIH bill before a final vote on it. But Congress should renounce all tactics that undermine peer review — and cease indulging those who use them.

Charles Darwin comments on the latest UK government initiative to engage society as a whole with science: “Scientists pressed, sweating into corners as costermongers, corn-chandlers, dogs meat men, chimneysweep’s boys, executioner’s assistants, crimps, pimps, organ grinders, grooms of the stool, fullers, gentlemen of the road, members of the aristocracy and ladies of the night (to mention but a few) all clamour to press on you their views on string theory, stem cell therapy, plate tectonics or catalytic cracking.

The government has called for Society to have its say on science. I hope your supervisors and lab managers will be patient as you listen to the throngs at the gates of your institutions, and that you will wear extravagent disguises when in public to avoid molestation by the public anxious to press their scientific opinions on you.”

On a more serious but less entertaining note, the Science and Society Strategy initiative aims to capture a range of views from the general public, scientists, businesses, media, education and government. It seeks input on three key areas:

• How to improve communication, generate interest, increase participation and convey the relevance of science;
• How to build trust and confidence in scientific research in the public and private sectors; and
• How to inspire young people from diverse backgrounds to become tomorrow’s skilled scientists.

  In what is believed to be the first website of its type for a Government consultation, an online interactive hub has been established to capture the feedback. It features discussion forums, videos and an interactive consultation document allowing visitors to respond to the entire strategy or to the perspectives of invited scientists, science communicators, broadcasters, policymakers and businesspeople on topics such as science teaching, how to reward good “public engagement” work and how to develop scientific literacy. The consultation will run until 17 October 2008. It is not clear from the website how the responses will be assessed. As well as commenting at the Science and Society Strategy website, you are also very welcome to contribute to the online conversation at Charles Darwin’s blog.

Massimo Pinto has discovered an unusual qualification for being a peer-reviewer: paying your taxes. Since 2006, Italians have been allowed to donate 0.5 per cent of their taxes to charity in a highly specific way (previously, such donations had to be made to the church or the state). On his Nature Network blog Science in the Bel Paese, Dr Pinto points out that one can elect to donate one’s contribution to specific research institutes. Leaving aside the fact that some of the intended recipients do not yet seem to have received their 2006 or 2007 contributions, specifying an individual project could have the effect of bypassing the peer-review system, particularly in Italy, where science funding levels are low. Dr Pinto writes that taxpayers have three choices:

—donate to funding agencies. It happens in many countries of the world. As long as the agency is committed to assign that money in a transparent manner, including, possibly, peer review, that should be fine.

—donate to individual institutes. In this way, taxpayers may be exercising a little peer-review power. Less troublesome, perhaps, if the institute acts, internally, as the agency above. Still, it is not obvious why institute A should be so much better than institute B. Maybe the cleverest scientist, with the best idea right now, is in institute B.

—donate to a specific project. Here the taxpayers are exercising bolder peer-review powers, and that raises a red flag

As some institutes have taken to advertising the importance of their research and the difference one’s money would make to humanity (no details provided in the advertisements), there is definitely scope for a loophole or two to be closed. As Dr Pinto puts it, “The particular advert that irritated me was a dialogue between two young citizens; one was asking whether the researcher in XYZ University were really going to deliver results, and the other one replied, reassuringly, that they were among the very best in Europe. Donating to them was a guarantee of success.”