Many years ago, before I was even a professor and still a newbie when it came to sitting on decision-making committees, I had a very disturbing experience at one particular grant-giving meeting. The details of what, who and where aren’t important, but the behaviour of the Chair and his (yes, it was a man, though that’s probably not relevant) pals around the table is what I want to discuss. I wasn’t the only woman on the committee, but the other woman was out of the room, as it was a grant from her husband that was under discussion. Again, although this couple were quite unknown to me and their research far from my field, it was clear some of the others – including the Chair, who I’ll refer to as Prof A – knew the couple well.
On the face of it, the grant application was not well received and the referees’ reports were not supportive. The startling thing was when Prof A said ‘ah well, we all know what he was trying to say’ and wanted to argue that the proposal should be funded. Others around the table nodded that the guy was a good guy and the grant should be supported. I sat there gobsmacked. I was not alone. I may, in those far off days, have felt too far out of my depth and of insufficient seniority to object, but someone else did. (I’d like to think if no one else had spoken up, I would have done, but who knows at this distance in time.) They pointed out that interpreting what the applicant wanted to say in this case but not in any others, was unreasonable. In essence, that the committee were attempting to rewrite the application mentally and on the spot. After some discussion, the proposal was scored (appropriately) quite lowly and we all moved on.
It left a very nasty taste in the mouth. Up till that point I had regarded Prof A as a good chair. He was business-like in general, kept the discussions moving on without allowing anyone to grandstand so that we kept to time, and held the committee together when there were internal tensions between what one might term the old guard who had one view of the field, and the more modern quantitative side. However, his manoeuvring on this occasion really shocked me and it made me wonder how much other grants had been steered to success (or failure) in more subtle ways. I may say, Prof A went on to a senior leadership role in the UK, and I did wonder (although our paths never crossed again) whether he still had this blind spot about his mates. This would have mattered greatly in that subsequent position.
I would like to think conflicts of interest are handled better now, with more explicit guidelines being common. However, they are differently interpreted between different bodies. Sometimes a grant-assessing committee requires anyone from the same institution as the applicant to leave the room. If the application is actually from, say, three universities, then numerous people may leave the room. Those left in the room may not be the experts, and it is hard to believe the applicant(s) are getting a fair hearing. I’m not sure what the answer is to this problem, but sometimes excluding someone from a Zoology department because an application from Maths in the same institution has applied may feel a bit like overkill.
Then, particularly with fellowships of different sorts, there is the question of who can be a referee. Sometimes a collaborator, who knows the individual well, is excluded because they’ve co-written papers (often a time limit of five years is put on that), or a PhD supervisor is ruled out, either (or both) of which can leave, particularly if anyone from your institution is also excluded, the early career researcher scrabbling around to find someone suitable. Excluding those who know an individual well means that references may come in that are very bland, offering little more insight than the stuff already available in the submitted paperwork.
Moving up the career ladder, it may not be simply your science that is being judged, but also leadership skills, the ability to chair meetings or effect change. But, again, those outside your institution may not have had much opportunity to see an individual act in these capacities. A colleague you know well through your research may have little to say about your strategizing.
I am minded to think through this as I wade through a pile of applications for early career overseas fellowships. In this case, someone at the intended home institution has to write a reference explaining their willingness to host the person concerned. These letters are intensely variable, in ways that may have no bearing on the candidate. Obviously, it’s good if the applicant and the host have had some interaction, but not when it is the student’s recent PhD supervisor who has just moved overseas and wants to take their student with them. That seems to me to be missing the point of the fellowships of broadening experiences. On the other hand, if it is the head of the overseas department, however strong a bond may have formed between applicant and the group they are going to work with, all that may appear on paper is a letter promising to provide space and IT support. That may be the bare minimum required, but it is not helpful. Sometimes one feels one email between hosting PI and applicant is all that has so far transpired, which does not give confidence either. But none of this may have anything to do with the strength of the applicant.
I’m not sure what the answer to this broad-ranging conundrum is. The more I think about how we judge others in the sciences (and probably elsewhere), the less confidence I have that any assessment can avoid one kind of bias or unfairness or another. One certainly doesn’t want the kind of behaviour that I started this post off with. But whose letter of reference should one trust to be totally objective? And can one exclude oneself, the reader and judge, from having one’s own biases (as opposed to scientific judgement) about the particular group or sub-discipline that turns up on the application form?
