Peer review overview
Peer review of reports
- As required by the Education Sciences Reform Act (ESRA), research, statistics, and evaluation reports that IES supports or produces undergo rigorous peer review before being published or otherwise made public. The Office of Science is responsible for implementing scientific peer review of the majority of IES reports.
- As required by the Education Sciences Reform Act (ESRA), IES’s peer review procedures were approved by the National Board for Education Sciences (NBES).
- The Office of Science receives reports generated by IES’s four Centers. There are two types of reviews – external scientific reviews and internal scientific reviews. Reports that include new analyses of data, systematic reviews, and other syntheses of research are sent to external experts for peer review. Reports with limited descriptive data analyses or compendia of already published findings are reviewed internally by Office of Science staff.
- Office of Science action editors conduct their own review of each report (if relevant, they do so simultaneously with external reviewers), and then write a disposition memo synthesizing the action editor’s review and those of the external reviewers (if relevant). In their reviews, action editors focus on issues of technical quality, and also ensure that reports are objective and avoid policy recommendations or advocacy for partisan positions, programs, or policies.
Peer review of research grants
The Office of Science is responsible for implementing the scientific peer review of grant applications. A key aspect of IES’s grant application peer review system is the purposeful separation of peer review staff and activities from research Center staff who run competitions, work with applicants and grantees, and make funding decisions. This is to ensure that peer review is as objective as possible, and enables program officers to provide extensive technical assistance to applicants in the preparation of their applications.
As required by the Education Sciences Reform Act (ESRA), IES’s peer review procedures were approved by the National Board for Education Sciences (NBES). Highly qualified external experts with in-depth knowledge review and evaluate all applications for grants and cooperative agreements. Office of Science staff determine the number and type of review panels needed, recruit peer reviewers, assign applications to appropriate review panels, assign reviewers to each application, provide instructions and guidance for reviewers, monitor panel meetings, and work with a contractor to provide feedback to applicants and generate scientific merit scores for funding decisions.
IES peer reviewers
Peer reviewers are highly qualified researchers and content experts in a broad range of areas. Follow the link below to view lists of reviewers.
Interested in serving as a peer reviewer?
IES needs peer reviewers for research grant peer review panels and for reports to be published by IES. Potential reviewers are identified for specific review activities based on the match between their expertise and experience and the review needs at any given time. The specific requirements will vary across different review activities. For more information about our research grant peer review, check out our Peer Review Guide.
The Office of Science, which oversees the peer review of grant applications, invites you to watch a short video about what happens to your IES grant application after you submit it to Grants.gov.
IES needs peer reviewers for research grant peer review panels and for the review of reports to be published by IES.