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

开发，编写，审查和决定研究提案的成本是一个研究不足，但理解资助决策的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的想法，而不是填写不必要的表格。“政府最近发表了一份关于”减轻研究、创新和高等教育中的官僚负担“的政策文件，其中包括承诺“与外部顾问合作，提供额外的、独立的挑战，并计算官僚机构的总成本”。此外，值得一提的是，据估计，85%的医学研究经费被浪费了。这种浪费发生在整个研究过程中，但有两个步骤--提出正确的研究问题和使用正确的方法来解决研究问题--是决定资助哪些研究的关键。然而，“同行评议”--这些在研究资助中被称为决策过程的过程--在资金分配中发挥着重要作用，可能会带来特别的好处。同行评审过程可能会加强赠款，允许磨练研究问题和方法，从而减少浪费并为科学过程带来价值。然而，我们对同行评议过程的实际运作方式了解有限，缺乏实证和比较证据，阻碍了我们评估这些益处和负担的能力。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年关于同行评议效率和效果的政府报告。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补助金报告的成本，并得出结论，这相当于每年1.96亿英镑（2006年货币），相当于总资金的13%。另一项关键研究来自澳大利亚，据估计，澳大利亚国家卫生和医学研究理事会（NHMRC）的申请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机构的工作，并估计货币化的成本（负担）的同行评审过程中的一个样本的赠款计划为英国的研究和创新（UKRI），并平衡，对从该过程中获得的好处。第二个目标是开发一个工具包，使UKRI和其他研究资助者能够评估未来其他同行评审过程的好处和负担。为了实现这两个关键目标，该项目将为四至六个计划制定同行评审程序，并调查所有参与制定、编写、审查和决定研究提案的个人。这些调查将按来源和阶段收集决策过程的效益和负担，并利用这些效益和负担来制定有关“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效益。

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.