The Impact of Committee Composition on Committee Decisions in NIH Grant Funding

I document significant variation in the quality of decisions made in NIH grant review panels and ask what might explain this variation. In this project I focus on how committee composition and group dynamics (for instance how broad a committee is, whether it includes highly influential scientists, etc.) can affect how committees identify high quality research. These results could be relevant for policy makers interesting in designing committees to evaluate, for instance, interdisciplinary research.