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The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s (PHMSA) Pipeline Safety Research and Development (R&D) Program has held annual structured peer reviews of active research projects since 2006 in accordance with mandates from 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 works well for panelists, researchers, Agreement Officers’ Representatives, and project co-sponsors, and 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 2016 peer review panel consisted of one Federal employee and five academic representatives.
Fifteen projects were peer reviewed by expert panelists using 11 evaluation criteria grouped within the following four evaluation categories:
- 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 May 2016 review, the average program rating throughout all the evaluation categories was “More than Effective.” For this year, eight projects were rated “Very Effective,” with 16 projects ranked as “More than Effective.” The average sub-criteria were also rated highly, underpinning these findings. The majority of peered projects and the overall program rating remained the same from the 2015 rating of “More than Effective.” Weakness in project management and communication with other related efforts contributed to the lack of change in the program average.
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