Policy on peer review and confidentiality

The use of independent peer reviewers (to obtain advice from experts knowledgeable in a particular research area) is an intrinsic part of the Trust's decision-making process when deciding which activities it chooses to fund.For more information, see grant decision-making process.

Maintaining confidentiality in the peer review process is central to our approach because we consider, in line with the majority of scientific research funding organisations worldwide, that the best quality peer review is obtained when the referees can comment candidly, in the knowledge that their comments will only be disclosed to those directly involved in the decision-making process.In addition we maintain the confidentiality of the comments because, in most cases, they relate directly to the work of identifiable individual scientists.However, with the permission of the referees, we do usually feed back non-attributed comments to applicants; this is particularly useful to applicants who have not been successful as the comments can assist them in understanding why their application was not supported and how improvements might be made to future applications.

Making the peer review comments of UK Biobank public

As an exception to our policy, we support the publication by the Medical Research Council (MRC) of the non-attributed peer review comments that informed the decision in April 2002 to fund the establishment of the UK Biobank project.We believe it is appropriate to make an exception in this case given the level of public interest in UK Biobank and the fact that the comments do not relate directly to any individual researchers but to the first draft protocol for the project produced by the UK Biobank Protocol Development Committee.A further round of consultation is planned on completion of the pilot stages.Comments from this will inform the decision of the funders (the Wellcome Trust, the MRC, the Department of Health and the Scottish Executive) to authorise roll out to full recruitment.These comments, again non-attributed, will also be published, subject to the consent of the reviewers concerned.

The decision to release the peer review comments on UK Biobank does not change our general policy of maintaining confidentiality in the peer review process.This will continue to apply in the vast majority of cases, past, present and future.