Understanding the benefits and burdens of funding processes, from idea to award.

制定、撰写、审查和决定研究提案的成本是一个尚未得到充分研究的问题，但却是理解资助决策效率的关键先决条件。这越来越成为一个优先考虑的问题，英国首相去年表示，他希望减少资助方面的繁文缛节，“以确保杰出的科学家能够花尽可能多的时间创造新想法，而不是填写不必要的表格。”政府最近发表了一份关于“减少研究、创新和高等教育中的官僚负担”的政策文件，支持了这一承诺，其中包括承诺“与外部顾问合作，提供额外的、独立的挑战，并计算官僚主义的总成本”。虽然这对一些人来说似乎是异想天开，但也值得回顾一下估计85%的医学研究资金被浪费了。这种浪费发生在整个研究管道中，但是两个步骤——提出正确的研究问题和使用正确的方法来解决研究问题——是决定资助什么研究的关键。然而，“同行评议”——这些决策过程在科研资助中被称为“同行评议”——在资金分配中起着重要作用，并且可能带来特别的好处。可能的情况是，同行评审过程加强了拨款，允许对研究问题和方法进行磨练，从而减少浪费并为科学过程带来价值。然而，我们评估这些利益和负担的能力受到我们对同行评议过程实际如何运作的有限理解（以及缺乏经验的、比较的证据）的阻碍。尽管对同行评议的负担、成本和成本效益存在这些担忧，但令人惊讶的是，关于这一主题的研究却很少。英国最重要的研究是2006年一份关于同行评议效率和有效性的政府报告。这项研究考察了准备提案的成本、同行评审的成本、研究委员会的行政成本和准备拨款结束报告的成本，得出的结论是，这相当于每年1.96亿英镑（以2006年的货币计算），相当于总资助的13%。另一项重要研究来自澳大利亚，据估计，澳大利亚国家卫生和医学研究委员会（NHMRC）的申请人负担相当于总资金的14%。该项目的主要目标是促进和更新这一有限的工作，并估计英国研究与创新（UKRI）资助计划样本的同行评审过程的货币化成本（负担），并将其与从该过程中获得的收益进行平衡。第二个目标是开发一个工具包，允许UKRI和其他研究资助者在未来评估其他同行评审过程的利益和负担。为了实现这两个关键目标，该项目将为四到六个计划制定同行评审流程，并调查所有参与研究提案的制定、撰写、评审和决定的个人。这些调查将按来源和阶段捕捉决策过程的利益和负担，并利用它来制定有关“减少研究中的官僚负担”的政策建议，同时保持从这些过程中获得的利益。

The cost of developing, writing, reviewing and deciding on research proposals is an under-researched but critical prerequisite to understanding the efficiency of funding decisions. This is increasingly a priority issue, with the UK Prime Minister stating last year his wish to reduce funding red-tape "to ensure brilliant scientists are able to spend as much time as possible creating new ideas, not filling in unnecessary forms." This commitment has recently been backed up with the publication of a policy paper by the Government on 'Reducing bureaucratic burden in research, innovation and higher education', which included a commitment to work "with external advisers to provide additional, independent challenge and to calculate the total costs of bureaucracy".Whilst this may seem fanciful to some, it is also worth recalling estimates that 85% of medical research funding is wasted. This waste occurs throughout the research pipeline, but two steps - asking the right research question and using the right methods to address the research question - are key to deciding what research to fund. However, 'peer review' - as these decision-making processes are known in research funding - plays an important role in the allocation of funding and may bring particular benefits. It may be the case that the peer review process strengthens a grant, allowing the honing of both research questions and methods, and as such reduces waste and brings value to the scientific process. However, our ability to assess these benefits and burdens is hampered by our limited understanding - and lack of empirical, comparative evidence - around how peer review processes actually work.Despite these concerns about the burden, cost and cost-effectiveness of peer review, there has been surprisingly little research on the topic. The most significant study in the UK is a 2006 government report on the efficiency and effectiveness of peer review. This study looked at the cost of preparing proposals, the cost of peer review, the administrative cost to the Research Councils and the cost of preparing end of grant reports, and concluded that this was equivalent to £196m per year (in 2006 money), equivalent to 13% of total funding awarded. Another key study comes from Australia where it was estimated that the applicant burden for the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) was equivalent to 14% of total funding. The primary objective of the project is to contribute to and update this limited body of work and to estimate the monetised costs (burden) of the peer review process for a sample of grant schemes for UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), and to balance that against the benefits that are derived from the process. A secondary objective is to develop a toolkit that will allow UKRI, and other research funders, to assess the benefits and burdens of other peer review processes in the future. To deliver on these two key objectives the project will map out the peer review process for four to six schemes and survey all those individuals involved in developing, writing, reviewing and deciding on research proposals. The surveys will capture the benefits and burdens, by source and stage, of the decision making process and use that to develop policy relevant recommendations on 'reducing bureaucratic burden in research' whilst maintaining the benefits that are derived from such processes.