Title: Procrastinating Researcher Delegates Grant Reviews to Trainee
Author: Adapted from a case written by Anji Wall
Description: A researcher delays looking at grant application she has been assigned to review and asks his trainee to review some of the grant proposals.
Keyword(s): Funding, Mentor-trainee Relationship, Peer Review
Based On: (Shamoo & Resnik, 2003, p. 89)
Case: A busy researcher 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 summary report on each. He only had to read through the other 15 proposals. He gave 12 of the proposals (6 for which he was a primary reviewer and 6 of which he was only required to read) to a postdoctoral scholar in his lab to read and provide commentary. During plenary meeting with all grant reviewers, the chairperson of the review committee realized that the researcher had not actually read some of the proposals because the researcher was unable to comment on the proposals when asked to clarify some of the comments he submitted.
- What are the key ethical issues in this case?
- How should the chairperson deal with this situation?
- Was it appropriate for the reviewer to delegate some of his assigned proposals to the postdoc? Why or why not?
- Would your answer to question #3 change if, instead of asking a trainee to review the grant proposals, the researcher asked the trainee to review a paper submitted for publication in a journal? Why or why not?
- What could the faculty reviewer have done differently?
- How should the faculty reviewer respond when confronted by the chairperson?
Source: Shamoo, A., & Resnik, D. (2003). Responsible Conduct of Research. New York: Oxford University Press.