Yale science team wins award for improving peer review process

A team from the Yale Center for Scientific Teaching Summer Institute won one of two America Competes Act Challenges sponsored by the Center for Scientific Review (CSR) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The team was led by Kaury Kucera, a lecturer in molecular biophysics & biochemistry, and included Helen Caines, associate professor of physics; Ramamurti Shankar, the John Randolph Huffman Professor of Physics and Applied Physics; Brett Berke an associate research scientist and lecturer in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology; and Rona Ramos, a lecturer in physics. 

The team was recognized for devising strategies to enhance fairness and impartiality in peer reviews for scientific research papers. The group was awarded $10,000 by the NIH center.

The plan, submitted by Kucera, included adding pictures of a diverse workgroup in the margins of papers being reviewed and having reviewers sign a pledge not to allow bias to affect their work. 

As team leader, Kucera decided to split the award, giving $5,000 to the Yale Center for Scientific Teaching and dividing the rest among the group members. 

The CSR and NIH set out two challenges to maximize fairness in the NIH peer review process. The first challenge was to identify new methods to detect bias in peer reviews and the second was to identify strategies to prevent bias in the peer review process.