Promoting excellence in research : Promouvoir l'excellence en recherche : examen mené par un groupe d'experts international à l'égart des pratiques d'évaluation par les pairs au Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada

Among its other findings, the panel has noted that what is expected from adjudication committee members and Chairs, in terms of the extent and amount of the reading of proposals, is not understood in the same way by everyone and calls for clearer instructions. [...] Yours truly, Michèle Lamont, Chair of the Blue Ribbon Panel Probe on Peer Review at SSHRC and Robert I. Goldman, Professor of European Studies, and Sociology and African and African-American Studies, Harvard University 10 INTRODUCTION The Terms of the Mandate The mandate of the Blue Ribbon Panel [hereafter, “the panel”] has been defined in the following manner by decision of the Council of SSHRC: [...] All meetings were held in camera, with the exception of the beginning of the first meeting on July 7, which started with a discussion of the mandate with the president of SSHRC and two of its vice-presidents. [...] Discussions on the implementation of the mandate, and preliminary findings and queries, following first analyses of the documentation, were the focus of this first meeting. [...] The second meeting, on October 15, was centered on the discussion of a draft report of findings and on the tentative formulation of recommendations, using (beyond the written material provided by SSHRC) the analysis of the interviews and some preliminary results from the survey.