Peer Review College
Information about membership
The main role of Peer Review College members is to provide reviews of Responsive Mode research proposals (grants and fellowships) and to participate in Responsive Mode moderating panel meetings. However, members may also be asked to assess proposals to other NERC schemes, or advise on funding policy and process development. Membership is open-ended but reviewed annually by NERC. Members can of course opt to end their membership at any time.
Academic membership
Academic members of the Peer Review College are usually active members of the research community who are familiar with the NERC funding assessment process. These members form the majority of the College membership and have the primary role in providing reviews of Responsive Mode research proposals (grants and fellowships) and to participate in Responsive Mode moderating panel meetings.
Affiliate membership
Affiliate membership of the Peer Review College was introduced to provide a user perspective on the research that NERC funds and enables NERC to access non-academic views in making funding allocations. Affiliate membership of the college is for those who use the results of research in some way, commission or oversee research activities or undertake policy-making or regulatory activities.
Affiliate members are often no longer research active but instead have a good overview of the needs of the user community and environmental research taking place. Affiliate members take part in the same activities as other College members, as outlined above.
How do I become a member?
NERC publishes an annual call for nominations for full and affiliate College members, usually in November or December, with a closing date in January the following year. To be informed of future calls, please email Peer Review College. You may nominate yourself or a colleague for membership. Guidelines explaining the criteria for membership are provided.
In accepting the invitation to join the Peer Review College, all members agree to NERC's terms and conditions for membership or affiliate membership. Past members are welcome to re-apply.
Unsuccessful applications are reassessed for the following three years, because we need new members in different fields each year.
What assessing proposals involves
For many funding schemes there is a two-stage assessment process. This varies slightly depending upon the particular scheme, but is broadly:
- The proposal is first sent to College reviewers who provide comments and grades using the criteria for assessment of that scheme. Based on this, a proportion of proposals are sifted out by NERC staff. For some schemes, a proposal that successfully proceeds through the sift stage is sent to non-College reviewers.
- A moderating panel is convened to assess and rank a group of proposals.
Academic and affiliate members are used in both parts of the process.
More information on NERC's funding schemes and guidance and criteria for their assessment is available.
Time commitment
The College year runs from 1 July to 30 June. Within this time both academic and affiliate College members may be asked to review up to eight Standard Grant proposals (or equivalent) per year and, whilst the conditions do not limit the number of meetings members may be asked to attend, NERC will not normally issue more than three meeting requests per year.
It is not possible to give an exact time commitment for members, as this depends on the individual. However, as a guide, reviewing a proposal may take approximately one to four hours (and NERC will aim to send not more than three proposals for completion per closing date) and preparation for a panel meeting is likely to take three days in addition to one (or exceptionally two) days of attendance.
NERC contacts all College members at various times during the year to determine their availability for reviewing activities and panel meetings. This means if you have a particularly busy period ahead, you can choose not to receive proposals at that time. However, in accepting membership, you agree to provide a certain level of input and attend meetings and we do monitor this. Those members who are consistently unavailable for meetings or fail to provide reviews may be asked to leave the College.
Timetables of activities
An approximate timetable of the different funding rounds throughout the year is available, giving an indication of the main reviewing periods and panel meeting dates throughout the year.
Further information about membership
Please email Peer Review College or contact one of the following:
College Co-ordinator
Andy Adams
Tel: 01793 442503
College Manager
Gemma Truelove
Tel: 01793 411794
Affiliate College
Andrew Richardson
Tel: 01793 411526