Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/10870609/The-damaging-bureaucracy-of-academic-peer-preview.html
The damaging bureaucracy of academic peer preview
Academic funding agencies should support research in unfashionable fields
Peer preview is now virtually unavoidable and its bureaucratic, protracted procedures are repeated for every change in direction or new phase of experimentation or for whatever an applicant might subsequently propose. Consequently, support for research that might lead to major new scientific discoveries is virtually forbidden nowadays, and science is in serious danger of stagnating. Many scientists privately deplore these policies but their professional standing often depends on their acquiescence – a catch-22 that effectively diminishes public opposition to the policies. We call upon funding agencies to support sustained, open-ended research in unfashionable fields.
Donald W Braben
University College London
John F Allen
Queen Mary, University of London
William Amos
University of Cambridge
Richard Ball
University of Edinburgh
Tim Birkhead
FRS, University of Sheffield
Peter Cameron
Queen Mary, University of London
Richard Cogdell FRS
University of Glasgow;
David Colquhoun FRS
University College London;
Rod Dowler
Industry Forum, London
Irene Engle
United States Naval Academy, Annapolis;
Felipe Fernández-Armesto
University of Notre Dame
Desmond Fitzgerald
Materia Medica
John Hall
University of Colorado, Nobel Laureate
Pat Heslop-Harrison
University of Leicester
Dudley Herschbach
Harvard University, Nobel Laureate
H Jeff Kimble
Caltech, US National Academy of Sciences
Sir Harry Kroto FRS
Florida State University, Nobel Laureate
James Ladyman
University of Bristol
Peter Lawrence FRS
University of Cambridge
Angus MacIntyre FRS
Queen Mary, University of London
John Mattick FAA
Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Sydney
Beatrice Pelloni
University of Reading
Douglas Randall
University of Missouri
David Ray
Bio Astral Limited
Sir Richard J Roberts FRS
New England Biolabs, Nobel Laureate
Ken Seddon
Queen’s University of Belfast
Colin Self
University of Newcastle
Harry Swinney
University of Texas, US National Academy of Sciences;
Claudio Vita-Finzi FBA
Natural History Museum