In 2021, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) overhauled its proposal review process, moving from single-anonymous panel reviews to a dual-anonymous distributed peer review system. The change aimed to handle a surge in submissions and reduce potential biases based on principal investigator (PI) demographics.
A retrospective cohort study examined seven years of data under the old format (2012–2018) and four years under the new process (2021–2024). Researchers analyzed how proposal rankings correlated with PI characteristics before and after the transition.
Details of the study were presented at the 10th Peer Review Congress in September 2025. The findings offer insights into how anonymization and distribution can influence fairness in scientific proposal evaluation.