An assessment of selection processes among candidates for public research grants: the case of the Ramón y Cajal Programme in Spain

This paper stems from an interest in assessing and encouraging the efficiency of the grant peer-review system in Spain. We use the curricula vitae submitted to the Ministry of Education and Science by a sample of applicants to the Ramón y Cajal Programme to build statistical discriminatory models that successfully replicate the outcomes and rankings produced by the peer-review process. The results of this exercise seem to show that the selection process mainly relies on the research productivity of applicants and not on other variables not directly related with scientific excellence such as gender, age or residence. Furthermore it suggests that electronic discriminatory tools could be further developed and used in the future to support and speed up the process of evaluation and selection of applicants.