Peer Review and Public Policy

forms, at three distinct steps in the research process : the evaluation of research proposals for funding, &dquo;journal&dquo; peer review of manuscripts for publication, and the evaluation and interpretation of research findings for policymaking, either as justification or implementation of a mission, program, or regulation. This special issue of STHV addresses all three kinds of peer review and its most important message may be that by no means are the practices empirically described for peer review consistent with the rhetoric that guides their use. Today, social structures that authorize and channel peer review are permeated as much by public policy