Got an idea to improve impartiality in the peer review process? The US National Institutes of Health has two challenges — with first prizes of $10,000 — open to submissions for ideas on how to detect and deal with biases in peer review.
For the first of the challenges, the Center for Scientific Review at NIH is seeking new strategies or methods to determine whether review bias is contributing the difference in funding rates between African-American and white researchers. "Submissions," the challenge description says, "could include approaches, strategies, methodologies and/or measures that would be sensitive to detecting bias among reviewers based on race/ethnicity, gender, institutional affiliation, area of science, and/or amount of research experience of applicants."
The second challenge, meanwhile, is focused on increasing the fairness and impartiality of peer review. "Each idea should be provided in sufficient detail to assess its ability to address fairness and impartiality with regards to gender, race/ethnicity, institutional affiliation, area of science, and/or amount of research experience of applicants," the challenge description says.
The submission deadline for both challenges is June 30, 2014, and winners will be announced September 2, 2014.