You will be asked different types of questions depending on your reviewer role. These questions are intended as guides for your review, and none are mandatory. You will be able to shape your review as you see fit.

Patient or Caregiver 

Stakeholder 

Clinical Researcher or Methodologist 

You will be asked two types of questions in your application to review: demographic questions and questions about potential conflicts of interest.

Demographic questions

All demographic information provided will be kept strictly confidential and used only for internal purposes of improving representation of diverse populations.

• Educational Level (required)
• Gender (optional)
• Race (optional)
• Community that describes your interest/stake in the effectiveness of our healthcare system (required)

Conflicts of interest

PCORI's authorizing legislation requires every individual completing a review of a PCORI-funded report to disclose conflicts involving any "association, including a financial, business, or personal association, that has the potential to bias or has the appearance of biasing" one's decisions relating to PCORI. You will be asked to disclose:

• Financial and Business Associations
• Personal Associations

PCORI's Guidance on COI

Areas of Expertise or Experience

Depending on the type of peer reviewer you are, you will be asked to characterize your areas of qualification or interest in some or all of these areas:

• Disease or health conditions
• Healthcare areas
• Methodologies
• Populations

A broad range of communities have a stake in the effectiveness of our healthcare system. In its mission to help people make informed healthcare decisions and improve healthcare delivery and outcomes, PCORI turns to these communities to guide its activities and the research it funds.

In general, you will be invited to review a research report two months before its completion. During that period, you will be asked to complete any available training and update your conflict of interest statement. The research report will be roughly 30 pages in length (10,000 words) and may include additional tables, figures, and other material. Depending on the type of reviewer, you will have two-three weeks to read the report closely and complete your review.

The PCORI peer review process uses a specially configured version of the Editorial Manager review system. You will be asked to create/update your account in the Editorial Manager system, and most communication about reviews will be through that system. When a report is ready for you to review, you will be asked to log into Editorial Manager and download a PDF of the report. You will complete your review within the Editorial Manager system.

Reviewer Acknowledgment Policy

Reviewers will be acknowledged as peer reviewers for PCORI in PCORI's public annual report and on PCORI's website, but reviewer names will not be linked to the report(s) that they reviewed.

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Recusal Policy

Reviewers are asked to recuse themselves from handling a report if they have an association that makes them unable to make an impartial scientific judgment or evaluation. A reviewer who has a conflict of interest but believes that it does not preclude his or her making a proper judgment must disclose the nature of the conflict to the editorial office.

Conflicts of interest include financial associations or relationships that could influence the objectivity, integrity, or interpretation of a publication. Such conflicts of interest include relationships with corporations whose products or services are related to the subject matter of the article. These relations include employment, substantive ownership of stock or mutual funds, membership on a standing advisory council or committee, service on the board of directors, or public association with the company or its products. Other areas of conflict of interest could include receiving consulting fees, patent filings, serving as a paid spokesperson, or providing services in exchange for honoraria. Other examples of possible conflicts include past or present association as thesis advisor or thesis student, recent collaboration with the author(s) (e.g., in coauthoring a paper or submitting a grant), or a family relationship, such as a spouse, domestic partner, or parent-child relationship.

(Parts of this section have been adapted from the Conflict of Interest Policy for the Proceedings on the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, http://www.pnas.org/site/authors/coi.xhtml)

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Confidentiality Policy 1

The report for review is a draft only and will not represent the final version of this report. Information contained in the report is not public and is subject to change. Therefore, we require reviewers to keep all information disclosed in the draft report strictly confidential. Reviewers may not discuss the information in the report with anyone except PCORI staff and the editorial office. Reviewers should destroy their copy of the draft report once they have completed the review. If you are not able to maintain the confidentiality of the draft report, we ask that you not serve as a peer reviewer.

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Confidentiality Policy 2

Reviewers who wish to do a joint review with a colleague must get the editor's permission to do so before reviewing the draft report. Reviewers who do not have permission to submit a joint review will submit only their own comments. Contact the editorial office at PCORIpeerreview@sciencesupport.org if you would like to do a joint review.

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Policy on the Publication of Reviewer Association Disclosures

PCORI's authorizing legislation requires that reviewers disclose all of their financial, business, and personal associations so that they can be posted alongside their name on PCORI's website and in PCORl's annual report.

This information will be collected from reviewers who agree to review. However, it will only be posted on PCORI's website and published in PCORI's annual report for reviewers who complete a review. The reviewer's name and disclosures will be posted on PCORI's website after the review period is over, as soon as possible without compromising the anonymity of the reviewer comments.

If you have questions about peer review of PCORI-funded research, you can e-mail them to: PCORIpeerreview@sciencesupport.org.