On the Need for Democratic Principles to Ensure Meritocracy in a Time of Research Funding Cuts

Michele Lamont’s research on the academic evaluation system is a brilliant and much-needed contribution because it brings to light peer review procedures, challenging some assumptions about how scholars define and recognize excellence. She invites those of us involved in peer review and evaluation to be more reflexive about how we accomplish such a task, since it is the “holy grail” of academic life. Peer review represents the main procedure for allocating resources and positions. Yet in spite of its centrality, it is surrounded by opacity and secrecy most of the time; it is one of many academic tasks that are never taught, and we have to learn from our own experience. Since January 2011, I have been a member of the social sciences coordination team of the Agencia Nacional de Evaluacion y Prospectiva (hereafter, ANEP), a public institution belonging to the State Secretary for Research, Development and Innovation, which is in charge of evaluating the main public research funding programs. Hence, as an ANEP member, I welcome the opportunity to participate in this symposium and to share some thoughts on this topic by drawing on my firsthand experience in academic evaluation, especially in the procedures for reaching agreement and defining the excellence of applicants and their proposals1. My ANEP colleagues in the social sciences team and I share similar criteria for judging the quality of research proposals as those studied by Lamont: originality, feasibility, social and scientific interests. Similarly, there is no a priori consensus about what is original, innovative, or interesting. This, too,