Skip to content
DraconiticResearch
Search Sources API
203,234 studies31 sourcesUpdated 37 min ago
Peer-reviewedCC BY 4.0PLOS One

Gender and disciplinary differences in grant proposal peer review: Content and sentiment in 39,280 reports

  • Stefan Müller1
  • Gabriel Okasa2
  • Michaela Strinzel3
  • Anne Jorstad4
  • Katrin Milzow5
  • Matthias Egger
5 affiliations
  1. 1School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
  2. 2Swiss National Science Foundation, Bern, Switzerland
  3. 3Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
  4. 4Center for Reproducible Science and Research Synthesis, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
  5. 5Population Health Sciences, Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom
Open at sourcePDFDOICite

Abstract

Peer review by experts is central to the evaluation of grant proposals, but little is known about how gender and disciplinary differences shape the content and tone of grant peer review reports. We analyzed 39,280 review reports submitted to the Swiss National Science Foundation between 2016 and 2023, covering 11,385 proposals for Project Funding across 21 disciplines from the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH), Life Sciences (LS), and Mathematics, Informatics, Natural Sciences, and Technology (MINT). Using supervised machine learning, we classified over 1.3 million sentences by evaluation criteria and sentiment. Reviews in SSH were significantly longer and more critical, with less focus on the applicant’s track record, while those in MINT were more concise and positive, with a greater focus on the track record, as compared to those in LS. Compared to male reviewers, female reviewers wrote longer reviews that more closely aligned with the evaluation criteria and expressed more positive sentiments. Female applicants tended to receive reviews with slightly more positive sentiment than male applicants. The tone, length, and focus of peer review reports varied systematically by applicant gender and disciplinary context. These differences have important implications for fairness and consistency in research funding.

Related

  1. Sex Differences in Sentiment-Scored Vocabulary Patterns in VAERS Free-Text Narratives of Four Major Vaccine Categories
    Kae Matsumura, Megumi Horibe, Yoko Ino +11
    Biological and Pharmaceutical BulletinPeer-reviewedCC BY-NCFull textPharmacology & toxicologyJ-STAGE
  2. Creating a lung ultrasound information score to measure the information content of pediatric point-of-care lung ultrasound reports.
    B. Dinh, T. Vidal, A. Hankins +2
    medRxivPreprintCC BY-NCFull textObstetrics, gynaecology & paediatricsmedRxiv
  3. School‐Age Differences in Reasonable Accommodations for Students Who Stutter: A Content Analysis of Medical Letters
    Yoshikazu Kikuchi, Yumi Yamaguchi, Masamutsu Kenjo +3
    Pediatrics InternationalPeer-reviewedCC BY 4.0Full textPsychiatry & mental healthPMC
  4. Concordant Metabolite Differences Across Cecal Content, Liver, and Plasma in Mice Fed an Obesogenic Diet Containing Common Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.): A Multi-Compartment Metabolomics Study
    Henry J. Thompson, Vanessa K. Fitzgerald, Tymofiy Lutsiv +3
    NutrientsPeer-reviewedCC BY 4.0NutritionCrossref
  5. Reducing surgical site infections among paediatric patients undergoing cardiac surgery: a multi-disciplinary quality improvement initiative
    Infection prevention in practicePeer-reviewedCC BY-NC-NDFull textGeneral medicineEurope PMC

Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{muller2026gender,
  title = {{Gender and disciplinary differences in grant proposal peer review: Content and sentiment in 39,280 reports}},
  author = {Stefan Müller and Gabriel Okasa and Michaela Strinzel and Anne Jorstad and Katrin Milzow and Matthias Egger},
  journal = {PLOS One},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0352900},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0352900},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Gender and disciplinary differences in grant proposal peer review: Content and sentiment in 39,280 reports
AU  - Stefan Müller
AU  - Gabriel Okasa
AU  - Michaela Strinzel
AU  - Anne Jorstad
AU  - Katrin Milzow
AU  - Matthias Egger
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/15
JO  - PLOS One
DO  - 10.1371/journal.pone.0352900
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0352900
AB  - Peer review by experts is central to the evaluation of grant proposals, but little is known about how gender and disciplinary differences shape the content and tone of grant peer review reports. We analyzed 39,280 review reports submitted to the Swiss National Science Foundation between 2016 and 2023, covering 11,385 proposals for Project Funding across 21 disciplines from the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH), Life Sciences (LS), and Mathematics, Informatics, Natural Sciences, and Technology (MINT). Using supervised machine learning, we classified over 1.3 million sentences by evaluation criteria and sentiment. Reviews in SSH were significantly longer and more critical, with less focus on the applicant’s track record, while those in MINT were more concise and positive, with a greater focus on the track record, as compared to those in LS. Compared to male reviewers, female reviewers wrote longer reviews that more closely aligned with the evaluation criteria and expressed more positive sentiments. Female applicants tended to receive reviews with slightly more positive sentiment than male applicants. The tone, length, and focus of peer review reports varied systematically by applicant gender and disciplinary context. These differences have important implications for fairness and consistency in research funding.
SN  - 1932-6203
ER  -