Bringing your expert review A-game

We’ve changed the terminology we use from ‘peer’ to ‘expert’ review. This is to reflect that we consider ‘experts’ involved in the process in the broadest sense – not just academics, but also experts from industry, clinicians, early career researchers, patients or people with lived experience and their carers, etc.  

We’ve revised our guidance under each principle to move away from ‘musts’ and ‘shoulds’ and instead provide examples of ways to meet the principle. The guidance has been edited to reflect current best practice and updated with new case studies. 

We've introduced ‘Diversity’ as a standalone principle, encompassing guidance previously under ‘Balance’. This includes an additional requirement for charities to consider the diversity of experts involved in review in terms of location, career stage, gender and ethnicity, as well as involving patient and public representatives. We acknowledge that this isn’t an easy one to crack, but we need to get better at it. 

There’s more in the guidance about cross-cutting themes such as Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) and patient and public involvement (PPI) in expert review. We hope that this will improve the quality as well as fairness of AMRC members' expert review processes which will ultimately result in maximum patient benefit. 

We’ve introduced a principle of ‘Proportionality’ and clarified when written review is necessary and when you might want to reconsider. 

There’s more in the guidance on innovative methods of expert review (such as sandpits and partial randomisation). We think that these can be incorporated by our members in your processes without compromising the overall principles of expert review. 

We’ve clarified our guidance to ensure that proportionate long-term review is carried out by both funders of single institutes and those making long-term strategic investments without ongoing open competition.