Why ex post peer review encourages high-risk research while ex ante review discourages it

Kevin Gross and Carl T. Bergstrom
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Kevin Gross: a Department of Statistics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695;
Carl T. Bergstrom: b Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2021, vol. 118, issue 51, e2111615118

Abstract: Science operates within social structures that govern and shape scientific activity. One such institution is peer review, which focuses attention on promising and interesting science while encouraging scientists to pursue some questions instead of others. Here, we show that ex ante review of proposals for future work and ex post review of completed science create different incentives for researchers. This tension creates a dilemma, because most researchers need to find projects that will survive both ex ante and ex post peer review. By unpacking this dynamic, we can understand how peer review shapes scientific activity and how changes to peer review might take science in unforeseen directions.

Keywords: Bayesian reasoning; decision theory; information theory; peer review; philosophy of science (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nas:journl:v:118:y:2021:p:e2111615118

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