The principle of proportionality

Proportionality is one of AMRC's six principles of expert review, which form the foundations of rigour that guide our member’s expert review and funding processes.

Proportionality: charities must ensure the review process is ‘fit for purpose’ with reviews proportionate to both the size and scale of the award and the expertise sought sufficient and relevant to provide effective review. Charities must seek additional review for applications where there is a lack of expertise on a particular subject area on any research review committees or among in-depth reviewers used by the charity, or where the funding requested is substantial in relation to the charity’s research spend.

Having each grant application evaluated by enough expert reviewers is integral to the expert review process for AMRC charities. It ensures robustness, reliability and consistency in decision making. Too few reviewers may impact negatively on the quality of decision-making. On the other hand, too many might lengthen the review process, use unnecessary resources, and increase burden on the reviewer community.

Achieving proportionality

The following describes steps that charities can take to meet the principle of proportionality.

At least two experts, be these research review committee members or other external subject experts, must provide in-depth review of each funding application. In-depth review can take the form of a written report, an oral report, or a combination of the two.

All grants must undergo a committee stage in which at least five experts consider the in-depth review and discuss the relative merits (scientific or otherwise) of applications to give guidance to the charity on what to fund. These experts make up a ‘research review committee’ which can be fixed or bespoke. Research review committee meetings must adhere to a quorum of at least five and we recommend a committee size of at least 10 to achieve this.

For research review committee decisions to be valid, a minimum of five members must be present. This also applies to decisions made out of cycle (i.e. annual reviews assessed outside of research review committee meetings). It applies even when conflicts of interest arise and committee members, including the chair, must be excused.

The charity must ensure that expert review is proportionate to the size of funding requested and complexity of the application. For smaller grants, the research review committee can be used as the key point of external scientific input, with at least two members of the review committee assessing each application in-depth. These grants shouldn't require reviews beyond the committee unless they are considered necessary by the committee to make an informed decision. Where the application requires substantial funding in relation to the charity's research spend, the committee should use additional external reviews'.

Above all, the charity should ensure that they have a sufficient range of expertise to be able to make informed funding recommendations.

When undertaking regular review of the long-term funding at the institute or location, a site-visit and meeting with the institute director and senior staff by at least a sub-set of the research review committee is strongly encouraged.

Have procedures for managing negative reviews, including potential disinvestment of funding for investments over 5 years (long-term review), should it be recommended.

For long-term funding, request regular progress reports from the funding recipient. These should be available to the long-term review committee for their review.

Have systems to ensure that the findings and recommendations are checked and have been acted upon when reviewing long-term funding.

When funding in partnership, you must ensure that, if delegating review to the other organisation, this process is compliant with AMRC’s requirements and principles. AMRC views UKRI/NIHR’s review process, as well as all AMRC full member processes as compliant and no other assurance need be undertaken in these cases. When partnering with other funders within the UK or overseas, a written protocol or memorandum of understanding should be used.

Consider setting internal ‘cut-offs’ for what level of funding risk (in terms of value or complexity) will trigger the requirement for increased, or decreased, oversight compared to your standard process of expert review.

View our other principles: