The University has established a mandatory internal peer review system, which means that all grant proposals have to be reviewed by colleagues before they can be submitted. The mechanism for enforcing this is via the HoD’s authorisation: Heads of Departments are not supposed to sign off on the RS1 form unless they are satisfied that internal peer review has been undertaken.
You can find the details of the University process on the Internal Peer Review page. As you will see, there is some room for flexibility in the rules. The details of the process in Computer Science are as follows.
- The Head of Department should be notified of all intended grant applications, regardless of value, sponsor, applicant etc., at least one calendar month ahead of submission. The only exception is when a proposal is being produced to a very short deadline. In such a case, the Head of Department will require evidence that the PI was not in a position to give such advance notice. In such circumstances HoD may approve an application that has not been through the internal peer review process, at his/her discretion.
- Where an application is being made in collaboration with partners from other institutions, the Bath CS PI may request exemption from the internal peer review process when notifying the HoD of the intended application. The PI will detail what quality control processes the application will be subjected to at partner institutions, and HoD will decide what is required at Bath. For applications made in collaboration with colleagues from other departments at Bath, and no external partners, the expectation is that the internal peer review process of one of the departments will be undertaken.
- For proposals that are to undergo internal review, the HoD will allocate at least two reviewers, one of whom will be nominated as the chair for the process, and arrange for the draft proposal to be sent to them. Reviewers will normally be members of the department, but may be drawn from other sources including the University’s Internal Peer Review College.
- The reviewers should produce feedback on the proposal within ten working days of receiving the draft. The chair will collate the feedback and return it to the HoD and PI. Discussions between PI, reviewers and HoD will take place as appropriate.
- The PI should then revise the proposal for submission and provide a summary of the changes made to the HoD. HoD will consider the reviews and the changes made in response to them when authorising the proposal for submission.
In all cases the HoD decisions may instead be made by a deputy nominated for these purposes by the HoD.