Title: Procrastinating Researcher Delegates Reviews to Trainee
Author: Anji Wall
Description: A researcher delegates some of his assigned grant applications to review to his trainee. This becomes apparent during the formal grant review committee meeting when the researcher fails to clarify some of the comments he submitted.
Keyword(s): Funding, Mentor-Trainee Relationship, Peer Review
Based On: (Shamoo & Resnik, 2003, p. 89)
Case: A busy researcher, Dr. Martinez, is part of an NIH grant review committee. He was given one month to review 30 proposals. He was the primary reviewer on 15 of the proposals, meaning that he had to read and write a report on each. He was just asked to read the other 15. He gave 12 of the proposals (six for which he was primary reviewer and six of which he was just required to read) to a postdoctoral student in his lab to read and comment on. During the formal grant review committee meeting, the chairman of the review committee realized that Dr. Martinez had not read some of the proposals because he was unable to comment on them when asked to clarify some of the comments he submitted.
- How should the chairman deal with this situation?
- Was it right for Dr. Martinez to give some proposals to his student?
- What should Dr. Martinez do so that this issue does not happen again?
Source: Shamoo, A., & Resnik, D. (2003). Responsible Conduct of Research. New York: Oxford University Press.