Alternative to peer review

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GCA/Precision Scientific Group 3 73 7 West Cortland Street Chicago, Illinois 60647 Distributed exclusively by American Scientific Products GCA Circle No. 394 on Readers' Service Card LETTERS Alternative to Peer Review? Rustum Roy's alternative to the peer review system (Editorial, 27 Mar., p. 1377) is simple and beautiful; but it has a design flaw similar to that of the early superhighways whose capacity was de- termined by measuring preconstruction point-to-point demand without consider- ing the added demand that would result from the convenience of having the su- perhighway. The current (verifiable) pro- liferation of refereed journals and the concomitant (and less readily demon- strable) lower quality of accepted papers are surely due, in part, to the use of numbers in deciding promotions in aca- deme. Given this precursor, it is not difficult to envision the added impetus toward low-quality publication, and (worse yet) the ultimate impact on quali- ty of graduate degrees that would result from attaching dollars to such quantita- tive measures as numbers of refereed papers and numbers of graduate degrees. Inefficient as it is, imperfect as it is, the peer review system has a qualitative component based on informed judgment which we cannot afford to lose. JON C. LIEBMAN Department of Civil Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana 61801 I read Roy's editorial with disbelief. In order to reduce the work load associated with peer review of grant applications, he proposes basing research support on a formula linking the funding level to pro- ductivity measured solely by numbers of publications, Ph.D. 's, and so forth. There is no mention of the quality of the research these numbers would repre- sent. Roy's proposal would not promote good science, but it would promote the proliferation and duplication of shorter, less significant research publications ; it would also encourage institutions to cheapen their degree requirements to turn out more (perhaps less qualified) Ph.D. 's. If individuals or institutions chose to maintain standards and not suc- cumb to the demands of the formula , their funding would be drawn away by those who did. I agree that peer review requires sig- nificant effort, but its very value is in assessing quality rather than counting papers. lf research funding were based on the formula suggested by Roy, a serious decrease in quality would be guaranteed. RICHARD L. MCCREERY Department of Chemistry, Ohio State University, Columbus 43210 While peer review as currently prac- ticed may not be the most desirable or efficient form of resource allocation, Roy's proposal for a productivity-based formula of block grants seems even less desirable because it raises more ques- tions than it answers. First, with respect to training, there are a great many institutions receiving public research funds which have no or minimal graduate programs. Those insti- tutions supporting training, in turn, often base the size of their enrollments on stipends available, not program caliber. Both of these considerations immediate- ly would distort any formula for training. Furthermore, the question of overabun- dance is ignored. Is it wise to base in- creased funding upon the continued pro- duction of unusable talent? These issues are not easily addressed by productivity figures alone. Second, a funding formula based on publication is certain to exacerbate the already too real problem of fragmenta- tion of data and duplicate reporting. How many more gratuitous coauthor- ships would appear, and how will junior authorship be counted? What body will decide what an adequately refereed jour- nal is in a given field? Who will want to publish in nonrefereed forums? Third, a formula based on a history of past support from a number of grouped sources ignores the fact that most re- search dollars are targeted toward highly specific goals. Within the National Insti- tutes of Health alone, for example, some congressionally mandated spending ex- tends to the program level within a single institute. Roy may be in a department and discipline where research falls into a single identifiable category, but this is the exception, not the rule. How would funding agencies be able to carry out their mandates, and who would be ac- countable for the pursuit of categorical research? Fourth, using the amount of industrial and private support received by a depart- ment to allocate public dollars does not seem justifiable, since in many areas of research the amount of private support is minimal. A small private contribution, therefore, could disproportionately di- vert public resources. This is especially true where institutions have sought to perform contract work for private firms. It is easy to criticize a well-character- ized system and to recognize its ineffi- ciencies. It is much more difficult to propose a comprehensive, viable alter- native. There is no a priori reason to believe that an administrative formula and substitute peer review by journal referees and institutional committees is structuraUy superior to the current sys-