Changes that address recognition

Develop new incentives for reviewers

This could increase participation, speed up the process and motivate reviewers.

A range of incentives could be considered: a thank you, a certificate of recognition, publishing the reviewer’s name on the charity website or annual research review, a small gift, remuneration, free access to the charity’s research conference, access to invitation-only research networking events run by the charity, linking reviews to ORCIDs (Open Research and Contributor ID) or use of Publons.

• This could be costly to introduce.
• Offering material incentives could decrease the desire to voluntarily undertake peer review in the future or for other funders.

Officialise a pool of experts from which to select reviewers

An official pool of willing and qualified reviewers could be established by the funder to undertake peer review. This would help to reduce the burden on the funder in finding reviewers and could speed up the process. It could also provide transparency as well as recognition to the reviewers if this information was available on the funder’s website.

• It would be good practice to have a strict code of conduct and terms of reference for the pool of experts that they agree to when joining.
• This could be paired with providing peer review training and refreshers on the charity’s aims and protocols to the reviewers.