Article

The Necessity of Commensuration Bias in Grant Peer Review

Author: Remco Heesen (University of Western Australia and University of Groningen)

Abstract

Peer reviewers at many funding agencies and scientific journals are asked to score submissions both on individual criteria and overall. The overall scores should be some kind of aggregate of the criteria scores. Carole Lee identifies this as a potential locus for bias to enter the peer review process, which she calls commensuration bias. Here I view the aggregation of scores through the lens of social choice theory. I argue that, when reviewing grant proposals, it is in many cases impossible to avoid commensuration bias.

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How to Cite: Heesen, R. (2022) “The Necessity of Commensuration Bias in Grant Peer Review”, Ergo. 8(0). doi: https://doi.org/10.3998/ergo.2240