Grant process not politicized

Re: Government grant denied to gender spat professor: questions over vetting being politicized, Christie Blatchford, April 4

I have served for six years, in various roles, on adjudication committees for the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada ( SSHRC). This year, I chaired the Observers Committee and moni t ored, with two other academics, over 20 grant adjudication committees as they engaged in the merit review process.

The purpose of the Observers Committee is to ensure that SSHRC standards for merit review are implemented objectively and fairly. There is no question to me that they are.

I write here based on my knowledge of the adjudication process and not as a representative of SSHRC. Adjudication committees of between eight to 10 academics are formed by discipline and everyone must declare conflicts of interest before reading any proposals. Before a committee begins its work, the chair holds a lengthy calibration teleconference to ensure committee members interpret and apply the scoring criteria accurately.

Each proposal is read by two committee members, whose job it is to read the proposal closely and score it using the criteria. In addition, SSHRC sends every proposal out for independent peer review to between two and four national and/or international reviewers, whose comments are also considered. Committee members then submit their preliminary scores to SSHRC and meet in person in Ottawa to discuss all proposals submitted to the committee. The conversations are fulsome and each proposal is considered carefully. Lastly, all of the scores are finalized and proposals are ranked from highest to l owest, with those deemed the strongest receiving funding.

In my six years of working at this level, having participated in, chaired, or observed the adjudication of hundreds and hundreds of applications, I have never seen it get personal, or for a grudge or politics to influence a decision.

Dr. Carla Peck, University of Alberta