AIBS_2016_GrantPeerReviewer_Survey_Anonymized
This data set is from a 2016 AIBS (American Institute of Biological Sciences) survey of biomedical grant reviewers and applicants and their perceptions of the review process. There were multiple areas of focus, including applicant perceptions of review feedback, and reviewer perceptions of the review process, as well as their levels of participation, motivations and preferences. The survey was reviewed by the Washington State University Office of Research Assurances (Assurance#FWA00002946) and granted an exemption from IRB review (IRB#15268; 45 CFR 46.101(b)(2)).
As mentioned in previous publications, the survey was sent out in September of 2016 to 13,091 individual scientists from AIBS’s database through the use of Limesurvey, which de-identified the responses. All individuals participating in this survey were either reviewers for AIBS (36%) or had submitted an application as a PI which was reviewed by AIBS (71%) or both (12%). Respondents were asked to answer questions based on their most recent peer review/grant submission. The reported reviews did not have to be AIBS reviews (it is likely that the majority of reviews reported here were not for AIBS). The survey was open for two months.
The original survey contained 60 questions and was divided into 5 subsections. Several publications have resulted from analysis of this data: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10669-018-9677-6.
The questions examined had either Yes/No or Likert interval rating scale response choices. Included in the data set are individual respondent answers as well as the full original questions in the first row. It should be noted, for most questions respondents were also given the choice to select “no answer/prefer not to answer.” (sometimes represented as the number 6 or by N/A). In some instances, answers were not required, so some are blank. Please see publications for more details.