ARS Peer Review Guidelines

Purpose:  These peer review guidelines apply to influential scientific information and highly influential scientific assessments that contain findings or conclusions that represent the official position of the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and are officially disseminated to the public at large.  The ARS peer review guidelines are consistent with the peer review guidelines established by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for determining whether and how to conduct peer reviews for influential scientific information and highly influential scientific assessments before it is disseminated to the public.

Authority:  Office of Management and Budget’s Final Information Quality Bulletin for Peer Review (hereafter referred to as the Bulletin), which was published in the Federal Register on January 14, 2005 (FR 70:2664—2677) (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/memoranda/fy2005/m05-03.pdf) and the USDA Policy issuance can be found at www.ocio.usda.gov/ by searching for “USDA Peer Review Guidelines.”

Policy:  ARS will strive to ensure the quality, objectivity, and integrity of influential scientific information and highly influential scientific assessments that it disseminates to the public.  ARS is the primary intramural research agency within USDA (the U.S. Forest Service also conducts intramural research) serving USDA’s action and regulatory agencies.  Non-USDA agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, often use ARS research.  With 22 National Programs, 1,000 + research projects, 2,200 scientists, and 100 + locations across the country it is difficult to predict what, if any, ARS research will rise to meet the thresholds established in the Bulletin and the USDA Guidelines.  ARS has a rigorous independent external prospective peer review process that reviews each Project Plan at the beginning of its 5-year program cycle.  ARS has Policies and Procedures for Publishing Manuscripts (http://www.afm.ars.usda.gov/ppweb/152.01.htm) in place that prescribe a peer review before the paper is ever submitted to a refereed journal. ARS research results, to be usable and citable, must first be published and have credibility based upon scientific peer review, regardless of  whether it reaches the thresholds of  “influential” or “highly influential” as described in the Bulletin.  In addition, ARS is currently implementing a retrospective external panel review at the end of the 5-year program cycle for each of its 22 National Programs.  These review procedures, plus the peer review conducted by the various scientific journals, is sufficient to meet the purposes of ARS’ mission. 

The position of ARS is that, in most cases, it is a decision by an action or regulatory agency to use ARS-generated research products as the bases of a major regulation or policy that will determine whether the requirements of the Bulletin need to be met.  In most cases, the action or regulatory agency will draw on ARS research plus research from other sources.  The burden of meeting the requirements of the Bulletin will fall on the agency that intends to use the research in establishing a policy or regulation that meets the thresholds.  This policy becomes effective on June 16, 2005.

ARS Organizational Response to the Bulletin:  ARS has established a committee that will meet, at least twice a year, to determine if any ARS research has the potential of reaching the thresholds defined in the Bulletin.  This Committee will be chaired by the Associate Administrator for National Programs.  The other members will include the four programmatic Deputy Administrators and the Assistant Administrator for Technology Transfer.  The Committee will review and update the ARS’ Peer Review Agenda as needed.  The Committee will review major research requests from action and regulatory agencies to see if they can predict if any might rise to the level of “influential scientific information” and to evaluate whether special attention needs to be paid to potentially high impact projects consistent to the requirements of the Bulletin.  The Committee will also serve as the point of contact for an action or regulatory agency that needs information about past peer reviews conducted on ARS research projects such as the current location of the researcher; the past peer review date, charge, findings and recommendations; and where appropriate, to let the authors know that their work will be peer reviewed again according to the Bulletin.  The ARS OCIO will be responsible for maintaining the Peer Review web site.

Brief Overview of Key Definitions (the complete definitions can be found in the USDA Peer Review Guidelines at www.ocio.usda.gov/ by searching for “USDA Peer Review Guidelines.”

• Influential scientific information means scientific information the agency reasonably can determine will have or does have a clear and substantial impact on important public policies or private sector decisions.  Executive Order 12866 defines an economically significant rulemaking as one that is likely to result in a rule that may have an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more or adversely affect in a material way the economy, a sector of the economy, productivity, competition, jobs, the environment, public health or safety, or State, local, or tribal governments or communities.

• Scientific assessment, a subset of scientific information, means an evaluation of a body of scientific or technical knowledge which typically synthesizes multiple factual inputs, data, models, assumptions, and/or applies best professional judgment to bridge uncertainties in the available information.  Examples of scientific assessments include state-of-science reports; technology assessments; weight-of-evidence analyses; meta-analyses; health, safety, or ecological risk analysis; toxicological characterizations of substances; integrated assessment models; hazard determinations; and exposure assessments.

• Highly influential scientific assessment means that ARS has determined that dissemination of the scientific assessment could have a potential impact of more than $500 million in any one year on either the public or private sector; the scientific assessment is novel, controversial, or precedent-setting; or the scientific assessment has significant interagency interest.

Peer review of influential scientific information is not required if the dissemination relates to:

• Sensitive national security or foreign affairs information;
• Adjudication and permit proceeding (unless scientifically or technically novel or precedent-setting);
• Time-sensitive health or safety information;
• Regulatory Impact Analyses (these documents already undergo interagency review);
• Budget, actuarial, and financial information;
• Routine statistical information;
• Information connected to routine rulemaking.