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Volunteer to Serve as a Peer Reviewer

Several Office of Research and Innovation (R&I) internal funding competitions utilize an internal peer-review process, which relies on volunteer UNL faculty to serve as reviewers. Faculty from all academic ranks, including those earlier in their career, are encouraged to volunteer. Reviewers are needed from every discipline at the university.  
 
If you are interested in volunteering to serve as a peer reviewer, please complete the form below. 

Benefits of Serving as a Peer Reviewer

 Serving as a peer reviewer affords many benefits for faculty at various stages of their careers. Benefits include:

  • Obtaining training and practical experience as a peer reviewer.
  • Networking and collaborating with new colleagues.
  • Gaining line-of-sight to the wide range of scholarly expertise and activity across the university community.
  • Strengthening your own proposal development and writing skills via the review of others’ internal proposals. 
  • Helping to strengthen the work of UNL colleagues by providing constructive feedback on project concepts.   
  • Helping to guide the future direction of research, scholarship, and creative endeavors at UNL and contributing to a robust intellectual community at the university. 
  • Receiving a service acknowledgement from R&I. 
Peer Reviewer Process and Expectations

When R&I is seating review panels for their internal funding competitions, faculty who have volunteered may be contacted and asked if they are available to serve as a reviewer at that time. Review expectations and timelines will be specified to aid potential reviewers in understanding the nature of the commitment, but in general, reviewers will be expected to:
  • Review assigned internal proposals.
  • Prepare written review comments for each assigned proposal using a provided review template.
  • Attend a facilitated review panel to discuss the merits of the proposals with other peer reviewers.
Review panels generally occur in October, November, April, or May. Those who volunteer are under no obligation to accept a request to serve as a reviewer if contacted. Faculty members will not be invited to serve on review panels of competitions to which they have submitted a proposal.

* Have you previously served as a proposal reviewer?
If yes, indicate the type(s) of proposals you have reviewed (select all that apply):
* Have you ever published a book focused on research, scholarhip, and/or creative endeavors? Experience publishing a book is preferred for Book Fellowship and Manuscript Workshop Program reviewers.
Indicate which R&I internal funding competitions you have interest in serving as a peer reviewer for (select all that apply):

If helpful, visit R&I's Internal Funding Opportunities webpage for an overview of these competitions.

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