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Political Influence Behind the Veil of Peer Review: An Analysis of Public Biomedical Research Funding in the U.S.

The U.S. public biomedical research system is renowned for its apolitical “peer-review�? process that awards federal funds to meritorious research performers. Although Congressional appropriations committee members do not make direct transfers to research performers, they support allocations for specific biomedical research fields and projects. I argue that members conceal transfers to their constituencies by supporting research topics to avoid the reputational penalties of interference with a merit-driven system. I use data on all peer reviewed grants by the National Institutes of Health during 1984 and 2003, and find that performers in the states of appropriations committee members receive 5–11 percent more research funds as compared to unrepresented institutions. The returns to representation are concentrated in state universities and small businesses. Members support funding for the projects of represented research performers in fields in which they are relatively weak and potentially counteract the allocative effect of the peer review process.