EDITOR, - Anyone who has been involved at either end of the peer review process will be aware problems associated with the system. Richard Smith's editorial talks of the failings of a cost process and reflects some of the concerns that seem to have prompted recent proposals to streamling grant reviewing in both the National Institutes of Health in the United States and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council in Britain. Other grant awarding institutions seem likely to follow.

The editorial emphasises the need for further interventionist research into peer review. Interestingly, one recent interventionist study of peer review of academic articles concluded that the process was indeed unreliable,2 yet provoked discussion with opinions ranging from agreement to rejection4 and threw up a number of suggestion for reform of the …