Applicants as reviewers: a mixed methods evaluation of the risks, benefits, and potential of distributed peer review for grant funding allocations
Anna Butters, Melanie Benson Marshall, Stephen Pinfield, Tom Stafford, Alexander Bondarenko, Barbara Neubauer, Robert Nuske, Pierre Schwidlinski, Hanna Denecke · 2026
Read Applicants as reviewers: a mixed methods evaluation of the risks, benefits, and potential of distributed peer review for grant funding allocations by Anna Butters, Melanie Benson Marshall, Stephen Pinfield, Tom Stafford, Alexander Bondarenko, Barbara Neubauer, Robert Nuske, Pierre Schwidlinski, Hanna Denecke (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13617845.txt.
Description
Anna Butters and eight co-authors test a scheme where grant applicants review each other. Their 2026 study covers a Volkswagen Foundation call that used distributed peer review. Panels face rising loads and scarce expert time. Sharing the work among applicants is one way out.
All one hundred forty bids went through both the new scheme and a classic panel. Over three hundred applicants each scored four or five rival bids. Surveys and twenty talks captured how it felt and what went wrong. Checks asked if rankings held up under reshuffles. The team weighed saved effort against fairness risks. Grant giving, it hints, may partly crowd-source its judging.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Anna Butters, Melanie Benson Marshall, Stephen Pinfield, Tom Stafford, Alexander Bondarenko, Barbara Neubauer, Robert Nuske, Pierre Schwidlinski, Hanna Denecke |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 80 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |