STFC Je-S Peer Review

The UK Research Councils' on-line Joint Electronic Submission (Je-S) system provides a common interface to all Councils for applicants, research organisations, and reviewers. STFC currently uses the system for proposal submission, grant reporting (both academic and financial) and status reporting. This is now being extended to peer review, so that referees’ reports will now also be handled via the Je-S system.

Changes for referees

Rather than receiving paper/e-mail requests for referees’ reports to be completed on our web-based forms, potential referees will receive an e-mail advising them of the request and providing a link to the Je-S System where the proposal and associated attachments can be viewed and the form completed. For those referees who are new to the Je-S System an account will be created for you at the time of the request and a link will be provided for you to activate this.

Before entering a referee report for the first time on the system the referee will be presented with the Research Council protocols for use of Je-S for electronic peer review. These must be accepted to gain entry to the document. There is a section on the document menu which enables the referee to “decline to review” and prompts the suggestion of an alternative reviewer. If you are happy to provide a referee report then the other edit sections of the form should be completed. The report does not have to be completed in one session; it is possible to save the form and return to it at a later time. The form, whether you have chosen to decline or provide a review, should then be submitted to STFC using the “submit” option on the right hand side of the document menu. Failure to do this will mean that STFC will not receive your response(s).

Changes for grant applicants

When referees reports have been received they will be anonymised and made available to the applicant (apart from fellows) for comment. An e-mail will be sent to advise the applicant and they will be able to access them via the Je-S system using their usual login details. On seeing the reviews the applicant can then decide whether they wish to provide any comments or not. Any comments will need to be uploaded and attached to the Je-S form and then submitted to the STFC. This area of peer review functionality is not available to fellowship applicants.

As this is new functionality for the STFC we would appreciate your patience and we apologise in advance for any problems that may arise.

Further information can be found by accessing the Je-S Peer Reviews FAQs.