1Department of Pathology, Faculty of Dentistry, Jamia Millia Islamia (A Central University), New Delhi, India, E-mail: kumar_neeta@hotmail.com
2Department of Physiology, Faculty of Dentistry, Jamia Millia Islamia (A Central University), New Delhi, India
3Director, International Institute of Health Management Research, New Delhi and Adjunct Professor, International Clinical Epidemiology Network, Delhi
Online published on 24 July, 2018.
Peer review is an essential part of all academic institutions and funding bodies to ensure that research done at an institution is of the highest possible quality. However peer review is a timeconsuming and imperfect process often resented by both reviewers and researchers. Reviewers may not be well versed with peer review process or have concerns regarding time constraints, fear of offending the proposal writer and reward. The researchers see it as a hurdle delaying the approval of proposal. They have concerns about bias, favouritism, unhelpful comments, leakage of ideas, and rejection of innovative ideas.
All researchers and academicians need to develop skills of reviewing the work of others as part of their professional development. There is no structured training for peer review process in academic institutions. The present paper provides basic guidance to reviewers, young researchers, students and their mentors on peer review explaining the purpose and benefits and limitations of review, criteria used to evaluate proposals, challenges faced by reviewers and researchers. The highlight of the paper is review criteria for each section of the proposal which can help novice researchers to improve proposal writing and young reviewers to provide a quality review.
Research, proposal, peer review, criteria, quality, purpose, benefits, challenges, limitations
