BU Research Blog

My experience of the BU peer review scheme for research bids – Dan Jackson

Constructing a credible research bid is not an easy process. Anyone who has experienced this will attest to the headaches, confidence crises, as well as the very practical obstacles of application forms that include boxes that defy common sense! Building an internal deadline and peer review process into this might seem like another unnecessary headache.

Our experience of putting a Higher Education Academy (HEA) collaborative teaching grant included all of the above. As a relatively inexperienced grant consortium, we requested internal peer review, and found it to be an invaluable process. We submitted a draft version of the whole bid document to the reviewers and got very useful feedback from two colleagues who were familiar with the funding body. Not only that, we continued the dialogue with the internal reviewers over the next few weeks leading up to the grant deadline.

This is what I would recommend to anyone undertaking the internal peer review process:

• Build it into your bid deadline from an early stage.
• Give them as much of the bid document to comment on as possible. The more feedback the better.
•  Choose your peer reviewers carefully – RKEO can help here – you ideally want people with experience of the particular funding body so as to give you the inside line.
• If necessary, continue the dialogue with the reviewers after you receive the feedback.

Who can I ask for further help?

• Caroline O’Kane in the Research and Knowledge Exchange Development team manages the RPRS and will answer any questions you have.