Narrative CVs in Grant Peer Review: Implications for the Review Process

Narrative-style CVs are a new instrument conceived within research assessment reforms. They are meant to capture diverse forms of scholarly activities and decrease the overreliance on quantitative metrics in funding decision-making (Bordignon et al. 2023). In this paper, I explore the effects that the introduction of a new CV format by one of the Dutch funders has had on the peer review process.

Grant peer review includes a comparative and contextualised interpretation of CVs which relies on judgement devices as well as interpretive flexibility of the reviewers (Kaltenbrunner and de Rijcke 2019). Standardised CVs have long predisposed some routine assessment practices which are now being disrupted by the introduction of narrative-style CVs.

The case study revolves around the effects of two major changes in evaluative procedures introduced by a Dutch research funder in selected competitions. Firstly, the CV format has been changed to a narrative one supported by a drop-down menu of diverse evidence (quantitative and qualitative) to be chosen to support the text. Moreover, the CV is now separated from the proposal and accompanied by a minimal description of a research idea. Only successful candidates have their full proposal reviewed which is done without a CV. Therefore, the reviewers are now presented with a radically different type of information and context in which they need to interpret it.

This intervention poses several questions about the ways in which interpretation of CVs and evaluative decision-making occur in these new circumstances. How do reviewers score applicants and justify their judgements? How do they establish comparability in light of diverse information? How do they maintain a sense of legitimacy and trust in a new peer review practice? I explore these questions using written evaluation reports and interviews with reviewers, focused on recreating their assessments of CVs submitted in the new format.