“Rigid criteria should not be established”?
A history of peer evaluation in European humanities funding
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7146/serendipities.v8i1-2.133995Keywords:
European Science Foundation, humanities, research funding, history of peer reviewAbstract
This article asks when, how, and why external peer review was introduced in the funding procedures of the European Science Foundation’s Standing Committee for the Humanities. It covers both the period before and after the introduction of external review in 1997. Up to then, a lack of selection criteria in combination with highly flexible procedures made it possible for a small elite to allocate funding based on personal convictions and ties. When peer review was introduced, this was done not only because of ideological reasons, but also for logistical, and, in the end, economic reasons. This insight challenges all too triumphant interpretations of the history of peer review and points to the intricate connection of the history of peer review to scale and institutional changes in European research policy.
References
Primary sources
Fonds European Science Foundation, numbers 307, 311, 316, 318, 319, 324-327, 331, 337, 342-345, 355, 358-361, 366, 707-720, 1781-1784, Historical Archives of the European Union, Florence.
From the ESF Online Archives, located at http://archives.esf.org/home.html, accessed 13/04/2022:
ESF Online Archives, “Completed ESF Research Networking Programmes in Humanities”, http://archives.esf.org/coordinating-research/research-networking-programmes/humanities-hum/completed-rnp-programmes-in-humanities.html; ESF-Online Archives, “About Humanities”, http://archives.esf.org/hosting-experts/scientific-review-groups/humanities-hum/about.html; ESF-Online Archives, “EUROCORES Scheme”, http://archives.esf.org/index.php?eID=tx_nawsecuredl&u=0&g=0&t=1650016983&hash=eee0ebf410b56b8d6e48c79d769bd808c93ebedf&file=/fileadmin/be_user/activities/EUROCORES/EUROCORES_Scheme/EUROCORES_Newsletters/ESF_80x120_Eurocores7_V03.pdf.
From the ESF-Science Connect webpage, located at https://www.esf.org/, accessed 13/04/2022:
ESF-Science Connect, “About”, https://www.esf.org/about-esf-science-connect/about-esf/.
Author, “Interview with panelist”, 10/12/2021, Paris.
Author, “Interview with panelist”, 14/12/2021, Ghent.
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