Evaluation of stakeholder views on peer review of NIHR applications for funding: a qualitative study.

Objectives: Innovations resulting from research have both national and global impact, so selecting the most promising research studies to fund is crucial. Peer review of research funding applications is part of the selection process, and requires considerable resources. This study aimed to elicit stakeholder opinions about which factors contribute to and influence effective peer review of funding applications to the UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), and to identify possible minor improvements to current processes and any major changes or potential innovations to achieve a more efficient peer review process.

Influence of external peer reviewer scores for funding applications on funding board decisions: a retrospective analysis of 1561 reviews.

Objectives: To evaluate the influence of external peer reviewer scores on the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) research funding board decisions by the number of reviewers and type of reviewer expertise.

Design: Retrospective analysis of external peer review scores for shortlisted full applications for funding (280 funding applications, 1236 individual reviewers, 1561 review scores).

Setting: Four applied health research funding programmes of NIHR, UK.