Capturing Frontier Research in Grant Proposals and Initial Analysis of the Comparison between Model vs. Peer Review

This paper discusses a scientometric-statistical model for inferring attributes of "frontier research" in peer-reviewed research proposals submitted to the European Research Council (ERC). The first step conceptualizes and defines indicators to capture attributes of frontier research, by using proposal texts as well as scientometric and bibliometric data of grant applicants. Based on the combination of indicators, the second step models the decision probability of a proposal to be accepted and compares outcomes between the model and peer-review decision, with the goal to determine the influence of frontier research on the peer-review process. In a first attempt, we demonstrate and discuss in a proof-of-concept approach a data sample of about 10% of all proposals submitted to the ERC call (StG2009) for starting grants in the year 2009, which shows the feasibility and usefulness of the scientometric-statistical model. Ultimately the overall concept is aiming at testing new methods for monitoring the effectiveness of peer-review processes by taking a scientometric perspective of research proposals beyond publication and citation statistics.