Science Review Committee
Reviewers are vital to the success of a fair and equitable review process and selecting the most promising science for our user program. Our Science Review Committee consists of neutron scattering scientists plus scientists in associated fields from around the world. Anyone in a professional position may serve as a reviewer (students and post-doctoral appointments are not eligible). You can submit your name or recommend someone else in the Integrated Proposal Tracking System (IPTS) using the Suggest a Reviewer form, or by sending an email to the User Office.
Reviewer Role, Responsibilities, and Guidelines
Reviewers are expected to conduct themselves professionally, provide respectful and constructive feedback, and minimize personal biases.
As a reviewer your responsibilities would include reviewing the scientific merits of proposals in your area of expertise and entering those reviews into IPTS. You would score each proposal on a scale of 1-5, write a justification for that score, and give detailed constructive feedback to the authors in the comments sections of the review. The reviewing process is conducted virtually.
Reviewers are assigned to one or more committees based on areas of expertise as listed in your profile created in IPTS. Current committees include Bio-SANS, Macromolecular Diffraction, Powder Diffraction, Single Crystal Diffraction, Engineering and Materials, Imaging, Chemical Spectroscopy, SANS, Reflectometry, SNAP High Pressure, Direct Geometry.
On average a reviewer is assigned 8-10 proposals to review each proposal call cycle.
Review Panel Meetings
A subset of Science Review Committee members is asked to serve as Chairs and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) for subcommittee ranking committee meetings, held virtually or onsite to review and rank all proposals.
Policy on use of AI for reviewing proposals
To protect the confidentiality of user proposals, reviewers are prohibited from using generative AI tools for proposal review activities.
Conflicts of Interest
Reviewers are required to acknowledge the Conflicts of Interest Agreement in IPTS before accessing their proposals for review:
- Reviewers are required to identify potential conflicts of interest with any submittals under consideration. Conflicts of interest consist of any relationships that impede your ability to act in an objective, honest, and ethical manner when reviewing the proposals.
- Reviewers are tasked to actively avoid appropriating ideas, processes, results, words or figures from any proposals they review.
- Reviewers are required to keep the information contained in each proposal confidential.
Reviewers can opt out of a proposal they have a conflict of interest within IPTS or by contacting the User Office.
Note that submitting a proposal and serving as a reviewer in the same proposal call cycle is not considered a conflict of interest. Reviewers are not allowed to review their own proposals.
Contact the User Office for more information or if you have any questions about being a reviewer.
