Results Of The Peer Review For Fiscal Year

This report studies the peer review and other quality assurance processes that federal agencies use in conducting scientific research and development. Specifically, it (1) defines what is meant by peer review, (2) describes the federal government's peer review policy, (3) describes the peer review practices of 12 federal agencies that conduct scientific research, (4) describes other agency quality assurance reviews, and (5) identifies which research is not subject to review. The report includes 12 federal agencies in its review, which account for more than 90% of the federal R&D budget in fiscal year 1999, excluding the Dept. of Defense.

Audits provide essential accountability and transparency over government programs. Given the current challenges facing governments and their programs, the oversight provided through auditing is more critical than ever. Government auditing provides the objective analysis and information needed to make the decisions necessary to help create a better future. The professional standards presented in this 2018 revision of Government Auditing Standards (known as the Yellow Book) provide a framework for performing high-quality audit work with competence, integrity, objectivity, and independence to provide accountability and to help improve government operations and services. These standards, commonly referred to as generally accepted government auditing standards (GAGAS), provide the foundation for government auditors to lead by example in the areas of independence, transparency, accountability, and quality through the audit process. This revision contains major changes from, and supersedes, the 2011 revision.

The medical research landscape in the United States is supported by a variety of organizations that spend billions of dollars in government and private funds each year to seek answers to complex medical and public health problems. The largest government funder is the National Institutes of Health (NIH), followed by the Department of Defense (DoD). Almost half of DoD's medical research funding is administered by the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP). The mission of CDMRP is to foster innovative approaches to medical research in response to the needs of its stakeholdersâ€"the U.S. military, their families, the American public, and Congress. CDMRP funds medical research to be performed by other government and nongovernmental organizations, but it does not conduct research itself. The major focus of CDMRP funded research is the improved prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases, injuries, or conditions that affect service members and their families, and the general public. The hallmarks of CDMRP include reviewing applications for research funding using a two-tiered review process, and involving consumers throughout the process. Evaluation of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs Review Process evaluates the CDMRP two-tiered peer review process, its coordination of research priorities with NIH and the Department of Veterans Affairs, and provides recommendations on how the process for reviewing and selecting studies can be improved.

The existing empirical literature on the peer review process in general and in accounting in particular has primarily focused on the fairness of the process and reasons for rejections of submitted papers. There is little evidence on the factors which might influence the overall timeliness of peer review. Based on a sample of hand-collected data from 477 articles published in The Accounting Review (TAR) between 1997 and 2009 I investigate the effect of informal feedback, article- and author-specific factors as well as fairness indicators on the duration of the peer review process. The results of my base model suggest that peer review in TAR is not object to external influence. Noticeably, articles which get highly cited after publication, pass the process significantly faster, indicating a certain effectiveness of the process. Collaboration between authors is a more important factor than informal feedback from colleagues, seminars, conferences, etc. In a second analysis I additionally investigate the effect of fairness indicators based on a subsample of articles for which the (accepting) editor is known. If institutional bonds between editor and author(s) exist, the time spent in peer review apparently decreases. This result should be interpreted with caution, as it could simply reflect a self-selection of high quality faculty. The results are robust to different definitions of author-specific attributes and the inclusion of submission year-, method- and topic-fixed effects.

This book has established itself as the authoritative text on health sciences peer review. Contributions from the world's leading figures discuss the state of peer review, question its role in the currently changing world of electronic journal publishing, and debate where it should go from here. The second edition has been thoroughly revised and new chapters added on qualitative peer review, training, consumers and innovation.