Peer review and grant applications

Abstract

In his provocative essay on the review of grant applications for research Horrobin glosses over certain points.1Horrobin DF Peer review of grant applications: a harbinger for mediocrity in clinical research?.Lancet. 1996; 348: 1293-1295Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (55) Google Scholar First, should laypersons sit on research review panels, as they do on ethics committees? Horrobin believes so and takes the line that it is with the money of and on the behalf of the public that research is undertaken. But clearly peer review by lay persons is no longer peer review. Moreover, not once does Horrobin mention the shrinkage of public research money, or the expansion of corporate vested interests in supposedly independent research. The widely reported Eysenck affair2Prof Hans Eysenck received more than £80000 in research funds through a secret US tobacco fund and leading cigarette companies.The Independent. Nov 1, 1996; : 7Google Scholar and the drying up of UK Medical Research Council funds for intercalated BSc study in medical schools might equally cause the public to be “considerably distressed”. Second, Horrobin's model of how science progresses merits closer examination. He cites Karl Popper in one of his previous papers, who was a staunch falsificationist.3Horrobin DF Refries and research administrators: barriers to scientific research?. 1974; : 216-218Google Scholar In at least one other major conception of how science advances (viz Kuhn's theory of paradigms 4) the scientists engaged in what Horrobin terms scornfully as “mediocre, line extension inquiries” are as likely to precipitate scientific change (by uncovering anomalies) as the bold conjecturalists, vaunted by Horrobin, who are in any case easier to falsify. In a judgmental world, one reviewer's “innovative and brilliant” may easily be another's “overblown and bizarre”. Rather than denigrate it, we should be supporting the mounting responsibility of the peer review process in weeding out conflicts of interest in clinical and basic science research, especially with the increasing willingness of tobacco and pharmaceutical industries to put in their oar (plus a rudder and the odd guest oarsman). Horton's commentary5Horton R Playing with smoke, but not without fire.Lancet. 1996; 347: 1782Abstract PubMed Scopus (3) Google Scholar about cancer research in Hungary sponsored by Philip Morris Europe circumscribed the issue very aptly.