Peer Review

Abstract

Superior (CAPES) were created, are unquestionable and perfectly visible without the use of a magnifying lens. Implantation of the Accessory Committees (Comitês Assessores-CAs) in the CNPq and Area Coordinations (Coordenações de Áreas) in CAPES , to evaluate the researcher and postgraduate courses, respectively, were decisive in elevating Brazil to the select group of 20 nations boasting the greatest scientific production in the world. Due to the CAPES system of evaluation, the best postgraduate programs in Chemistry are of a quality comparable to that of many industrialized nations. It is noteworthy that in the academic sector there are 300 new PhDs yearly, while this same sector is responsible for over 90% of foreign publications, notwithstanding Brazil's two periodicals-Química Nova (http://quimicanova.sbq.org.br/quimicanova.htm), IF = 0.627 and the Journal of the Brazilian Chemical Society (http://jbcs.sbq.org.br), IF = 1.16, this last being of greatest impact among all Latin American scientific periodicals in this area. 1-3 If Brazilian academic Chemistry is, at this moment in time, beyond the frontier of scientific article publications and in turning out PhDs, it is behind in transforming the Brazilian Chemical industry into an industry of specialties, as well as transforming knowledge into riches for the nation. The system of peer review should be regulated by the researcher's academic-scientific-technological merit, or that of the course itself, and make use of qualitative criteria, while still allowing that quantitative criteria be used subsidiarily. The criteria should be both amply well-known and legitimate, their changes requiring ample debate and the construction of consensus. Necessarily, in peer review, the criteria for evaluation belong to the evaluated community and not to the evaluators; otherwise, the evaluation would not be by peers! What is seen to be currently true is a growing wave of dissatisfaction among those evaluated (researchers and courses) with the criteria and parameters for evaluation which, very often, are either not very well qualified or use purely quantitative parameters for their evaluation which negate peer review itself. This would seem to indicate an uncertain future, without Evaluating Committees, and in which a checklist and a computer program might produce the ranking, such as is done, for example, for tennis players! In the early 1990s, some Brazilian biochemists began to propose the introduction of the Impact Factor (IF) parameter for scientific periodicals 1 and the number of citations to evaluate researchers. What began as a simple proposal, gained projection and became a veritable fever, even though the impact factor parameter has been abandoned by agencies and universities of developed countries. Use of the IF for the evaluating systems of departments, universities and funding agencies has gained more importance than it deserves. This does not mean that it should not be used for evaluations. The Brazilian Chemical community is proud of the impact factor in the Braz...