1. The Peer Review College
and
the application process
Arts and Humanities
Research Council
V2, Jan. 2016

2. The Peer Review College

3. The AHRC Peer Review College (PRC) was
established in 2004 with an initial membership of 460
research active academics.
Membership currently stands at approximately 900.
College members are experts drawn from academic
and other organisations, covering the full range of arts
and humanities research areas
Members can belong to one or more groups:
•academic
•international
•strategic
•non-HEI
•knowledge exchange
•technical

4. Who are our reviewers?
•AHRC Peer Review College (PRC)
•Off-College Reviewers
How do we select reviewers?
•primary consideration is to find an appropriate match of reviewer expertise
to the subject matter of the application
•first choice is to find subject expert reviewers from within membership of
the College
•if there is no suitable match on the College, then we have the flexibility to
approach subject experts from outside membership of the College
•for some schemes or grants specialist reviewers from one of the College
Groups will be appointed.

5. Membership of the PRC
Membership period
•members appointed for 4 years at a time, with reappointment considered
based on reviewer performance and subject coverage
•members can resign at any point, or can be removed by the AHRC if
necessary.
Workload
•review quota of 8 per year, and no more than 4 per quarter (although
some exceptionally do more than this). Technical Reviewers have a
separate quota of 8 technical reviews per year.
Availability
•members can make themselves temporarily unavailable (time off from
review requests) to allow for particularly busy periods, research leave,
holiday, maternity/paternity leave, illness etc.
Performance
•acceptance/decline rate (including late responses, or where there has
been no response) and requests to re-write (either due to lack of sufficient
detail or inappropriate content) are monitored.

6. Benefits of PRC membership
For the individual:
•Membership of the College is an indicator of esteem within the Arts and
Humanities Community.
•Members gain insight into how to best frame their own research
applications.
•Opportunities to sit on Peer Review Panels and other bodies, and to
engage with wider work of AHRC.
For their organisation:
•Esteem indicator for Research Organisations and individual departments.
•College members are well placed to advise on internal assessment of
funding applications prior to submission, and to mentor colleagues on peer
review processes.
For the AHRC:
•The College is a valuable vehicle for engaging and consulting with our
subject community.
•The AHRC is provided with a professional and well motivated body of
subject experts to supply reviews.

7. Stages of the application
process

8. Main Stages of the Review Process- Part 1
Note: This overview is not applicable to all schemes, for which aspects of the full
process will not be required.
Proposals
received in the
office
Peer Review
College reviewers
selected
Proposals
reviewed by
Peer Review
College
members
Quality sifting by AHRC
based on PRC reviews.
Proposals with
two or more
unfundable
grades =
unsuccessful.
Proposals with at
least two fundable
grades proceed to
PI response to peer
reviews.
Proposals
checked by staff

9. Main Stages of the Review Process- Part 2
Note: this overview is not applicable to all schemes, for which aspects of the full process
will not be required.
Panellists individually
review, comment on
and assign grades to
each proposal.
Proposals, reviews and
PI responses to peer
reviews sent to panel
members.
Panel meetings:
Grades and rankings
decided, and feedback
agreed where
appropriate.
Final funding decision
made by AHRC
Unsuccessful Successful
Council Finances

10. Moderating and Assessment Panels
The AHRC convenes two kinds of panels:
•Moderating panels where panellists will not re-assess proposals.
These panels moderate the reviews which have been received, along
with the PI Response to those reviews, and use this as the basis for
ranking. In order to do this, members need to use academic judgment
based on the reviews and PI Response.
•Assessment panels where panellists (re-)assess applications and also
serve on the panel.
The final funding decision is made by the AHRC, based on the
recommendations of the panel.

11. AHRC Schemes
Moderating panel route:
Proposals
received
and checked
3 peer
reviews
Proposals
received
and checked
PI response
Moderating
panels meet
to agree
grade and
rank
Funding
decision
Assessment
by up to 3
panel
members
Assessment
panels meet
to agree
grade and
rank
Assessment panel route:
Funding
decision

12. Further guidance available:
• Research Funding Guides
•Scheme Guidance
• AHRC website
• Je-S Help text
• AHRC officers
•Peer Review College handbook
•Panellists’ Guidance documentation
•PRC Newsletters for PRC members only.