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Policy

Challenging Peer Review

Policy: Congressman questions some social sciences grants, wants new standards for awards

by Andrea Widener
May 3, 2013 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 91, Issue 18

Smith
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Credit: U.S. House of Representatives
Rep. Lamar S. Smith (R-Texas)
Credit: U.S. House of Representatives

Eliminating what he sees as wasteful spending and adding new criteria to peer review of National Science Foundation grants are on the agenda of Rep. Lamar S. Smith (R-Texas), chair of the House of Representatives Science, Space & Technology Committee. Smith is questioning the legitimacy of several NSF social sciences grants and recommending changes to the agency’s award process. His proposals could have ripple effects on other science programs.

In a letter to NSF Acting Director Cora B. Marrett, he wondered whether the cited social sciences awards meet the agency’s intellectual merit criteria. The grants are for studies on a potpourri of topics, such as the International Criminal Court and the history of scientific conservation in South America.

But Smith is oversteping his bounds in investigating individual grants, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), ranking member of Smith’s committee, fired back in a letter of her own.

NSF says both letters are under review.

Smith is also circulating a draft bill that would require the NSF director to affirm three new criteria for every research grant: that the project is in the interests of the U.S., that it addresses problems of the “utmost importance to society at large,” and that it doesn’t duplicate other work at NSF or other federal agencies. The draft bill—which has not been introduced yet—also asks the White House to study whether the additional criteria could work at other science agencies.

“It is really amazing to me that people are trying to micromanage NSF,” says Luis A. Echegoyen, a chemistry professor at the University of Texas, El Paso, and a former director of the agency’s Chemistry Division. NSF’s peer review system is a model worldwide, he adds.

The draft bill also threatens NSF’s focus on fundamental research, says Judith S. Bond, president of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. “Basic science has long-range implications for health and prosperity, but those outcomes might be years away,” she says.

Smith says critics are deliberately misinterpreting the proposed legislation, which he says simply adds a layer of accountability.

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