Special Articles

Issues and Suggestions for Advanced Practices of Expert Review in the Evaluation of Science and Technology

Dong Hoon Oh

Abstract

With the increasing focus on productivity growth and global challenges such as climate change and energy security, there has been a growing focus on the evaluation of public support to R&D and innovation. In that respect expert review is in fact one of the most common methods used to evaluate public funding of science and technology. This article focuses on the role of expert review as a significant methodological tool for ex post and ex ante evaluations of research policies, programs and public research organizations (PROs). It describes the definitions, the key processes and uses of expert review especially at the program and policy level, summarizes the challenges and suggests potential solutions to these challenges for policy makers. The demand for effective evaluation tools to make decisions on research funding will continue to increase as countries try to enhance competitiveness and improve innovation capacity. In this respect expert review is a useful tool to meet accountability and effectiveness of public support, but it would be needed more research collaboration among researchers, policy makers, and stakeholders. This paper concludes with a list of principles and suggestions for good practices in the use of expert review in programme and policy evaluation that are based on findings from the literature on expert review and the experience of countries.

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