Panel Urges Tighter Review of Research-Grant Proposals

By Debra Viadero

Washington

If the Department of Education is going to raise the credibility of the research it supports, a new report concludes, it must bolster its system for outside review of grant proposals.

At the direction of Congress, the department four years ago tightened guidelines governing the peer-review panels that evaluate proposals for agency funding. But the report, commissioned by an advisory board to the department, suggests that the changes didn't go far enough.

Some of the problems cited...