Update on the new peer review structure for NSERC Discovery Grants

February 11, 2009 - As announced last June, NSERC is moving ahead to replace its current Grant Selection Committees (GSCs) with a system of Conference review.

Throughout the summer and fall, NSERC Discovery Grants staff held extensive discussions with key stakeholders to validate options for the new review process and help develop the groups and sections that will make up the review structure. Further advice was provided in November by the NSERC Committee on Grants and Scholarships.

NSERC has just published a comprehensive FAQ document that provides general information on how the new review will work.

NSERC wishes to thank applicants to the 2008 Discovery Grants Competition for information they provided to assist in the development of topic groupings. As indicated previously, this information is being used solely for analysis purposes and it will have no bearing on the peer review of the grant applications in the current competition.

While there are still some issues to be resolved, NSERC is confident it can implement the Conference structure for the 2010 Competition. In the meantime, two more discipline clusters have decided to function in a conference mode for the 2009 Competition. One will re-unite the Computing and Information Sciences GSCs, the other, those associated with Electrical and Computer Engineering.

NSERC has now also published the formal Management Response to the International Review Committee’s evaluation of the Discovery Grants Program. The wide-ranging 2008 assessment provided compelling new evidence for the effectiveness of Discovery Grants funding as an enabler of internationally competitive research and a contributor to the goals of Canada’s Science and Technology Strategy. The extensive set of Appendices to the Review is now also available on line.