Big names or big ideas: Do peer-review panels select the best science proposals?
Abstract
This paper examines the success of peer-review panels in predicting the future quality of proposed research. We construct new data to track publication, citation, and patenting outcomes associated with more than 130,000 research project (R01) grants funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health from 1980 to 2008. We find that better peer-review scores are consistently associated with better research outcomes and that this relationship persists even when we include detailed controls for an investigator's publication history, grant history, institutional affiliations, career stage, and degree types. A one-standard deviation worse peer-review score among awarded grants is associated with 15% fewer citations, 7% fewer publications, 19% fewer high-impact publications, and 14% fewer follow-on patents.
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Analyses of NIH, NSF, and European funding programmes report correlations between reviewers that often fall in the range of 0.2-0.4, depending on field and design.
“analyses of NIH, NSF, and European funding programmes report correlations between reviewers that often fall in the range of 0.2 -0.4, depending on field and design (Bornmann et al., 2010; Li & Agha, 2015).”
From Can Large Language Models Evaluate Grant Proposal Quality? Revisiting the Wennerås and Wold Peer Review Data (2026) · cites this paper as Li & Agha, 2015
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References 26 · Cited by 227
- Authors
- Li, D., & Agha, L.
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- Boston University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Li, Danielle
- Agha, Leila
- Venue
- Science
- Published
- 2015-04-24
- Volume
- 348
- Issue
- 6233
- Pages
- 434-438
- ISSN
- 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
- 1095-9203
- OpenAlex
- W1975626251
- Cited by
- 227
- References
- 26
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 24 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 27 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 17 · 2020: 21 · 2019: 27 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 22 · 2016: 15 · 2015: 15 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 46.35
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Johns Hopkins University
- National Institutes of Health
- Center for Scientific Review
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Research, Science, and Academia
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › scientometrics and bibliometrics research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Psychology Research and Bibliometrics
- Keywords
- peer review, research grant evaluation, R01 grants, National Institutes of Health, research quality, citation impact, publication outcomes, patenting
- MeSH terms
- Financing, Organized, National Institutes of Health (U.S.), United States, Peer Review, Research, Biomedical Research, Journal Impact Factor
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