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The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s (PHMSA) Pipeline Safety Research and Development (R&D) Program is holding annual structured peer reviews of active research projects since 2006 in accordance with mandates by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Office of the Secretary of Transportation (OST) to maintain research data quality. PHMSA holds these reviews virtually via teleconference and the Internet saving time and resources. This execution is also working well with panelists, researchers, Agreement Officers’ Technical Representatives and project co-sponsors. Most impressively, the PHMSA approach facilitates attendance from all U.S. time zones, Canada and Europe.
The annual peer review continues to build on an already strong and systematic evaluation process developed by PHMSA’s Pipeline Safety R&D Program and certified by the Government Accountability Office. The 2012 peer review panel consisted of six government and academic experts. One panelist represented the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, one panelist was a retired government representative from the National Institute of Standards and Technology with the remaining panelists representing independent experts, academics and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Fifteen active research projects were peer reviewed by expert panelists using 13 evaluation criteria. These criteria were grouped within the following five evaluation categories:
- Project relevance to the PHMSA mission.
- Project management.
- Approach taken for transferring results to end users.
- Project coordination with other closely related programs.
- Quality of project results.
The rating scale possibilities were "Ineffective," "Effective," “More than Effective” or "Very Effective." During the April 2012 review, the average program rating between all the evaluation categories was “More than Effective.” For this year, 7 projects were rated “Very Effective” with 8 projects ranked as “More than Effective.” The average sub-criteria scoring were also rated very high and underpin these findings. The majority of peered projects and the overall program rating is down from the “Very Effective” average seen since 2006 to “More than Effective.” The program attributes this lower rating to lower scoring seen in the Project Management category. The majority of peered projects were renegotiated (to replace some funding sources with PHMSA funds) since the CY 2011 reviews by order of OST and caused a noticeable impact to project timelines and milestone achievement. Additional details are available in Section 7 and Tables 4, 5 and in Appendix C of the report.
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