ALMA is strongly committed to ensuring that the proposal review process is as fair and impartial as possible. The most recent analysis of the ALMA proposal rankings is presented in Carpenter et al. (2022). To reduce any biases as much as possible, ALMA requires proposals to be written in an anonymous fashion. In a dual-anonymous review, the proposal team does not know the identity of the reviewers, and the reviewers do not know the identity of the proposal team.  The primary goal of dual-anonymous review is to have reviewers focus on the scientific merit of the proposal rather than the proposal team.  While proposers will still enter their names and affiliations in the ALMA Observing Tool (OT), this information will not appear on the proposal cover sheet, nor in the tools used by the reviewers. It is the responsibility of the proposers to ensure anonymity is preserved in the information provided in the cover sheet, and when preparing the Scientific Justification and Technical Justification.

Guidelines are provided below on how to write proposals in an anonymous fashion. Most of the changes are in the writing style, including references. Proposers should remember to make the relevant changes, especially when resubmitting a proposal from a cycle previous to the implementation of dual-anonymous in Cycle 8.

 

General Guidelines pertaining to all Programs

• Do not identify the PI or any of the co-PIs or co-Is in the proposal. This includes the proposal cover sheet, Scientific Justification, and Technical Justification.
• Proposers should use third person or neutral wording when referencing their own work.

For example, instead of:

“In Smith et al. (2018), we demonstrated…”

proposers can include references in the following formats:

“As demonstrated in Smith et al. (2018),....”

or

“As demonstrated in [1],...”

where in the latter case, [1] corresponds to the full citation in a reference list.

• Do not refer to software or data from ALMA or other observatories in a self-identifying fashion. Software and datasets that are available in a public repository (e.g., GitHub) or in a public paper can be referenced per normal practices. Software or datasets that are not public can be referenced as “obtained via private communications” or similar language, but a name should not be specified since it could strongly imply who may be an investigator on the proposal.

Example 1, instead of:

“Figure 1 shows the image from our Cycle 7 ALMA program (2019.1.02045.S, PI Smith).”

proposers can write

“Figure 1 shows the image from the Cycle 7 ALMA program 2019.1.02045.S.” 

or

“Figure 1 shows the data from an ALMA Cycle 7 program (private communication).”

Example 2, instead of:

“We will combine these ALMA observations with the HST program led by Chang et al.”

or

“The proposed ALMA observations will be combined with our HST data…”

proposers can write

"We will combine these ALMA observations with the HST observations (HST code XXX).”

or

“The proposed ALMA observations will be combined with available HST data (private communication) ...”

Example 3, instead of:

“We use our group’s line identification package STAR…”

or

“We use the line identification package STAR by co-I Sandra Smith…”

proposers can write

“We use the line identification package STAR (obtained via private communication) ...”

More examples, instead of

“Our Cycle 5 program showed…”

“The data from our pilot program…”

“Our previous disk survey…”

proposers can write

“The data from a Cycle 5 program (private communication) …”

“The data from program 2017.1.00105.S …”

“The survey from Smith et al. (2018) ...”

• Do not list the name of the PI when listing a proposal project, even if the proposal is not your own.
• Do not list the name of the person when referencing “private communication”.
• Do not provide links to personal web pages or the web pages of project teams.
• References to papers in preparation need to be referenced as private communication.

For example, instead of:

“Figure 1 shows the CO image of the cloud from Chang et al. (in preparation).”

 proposers can write

“Figure 1 shows the CO image of the cloud (private communication).”

• References to papers that have been submitted are not permitted unless they are available on public archives (e.g, arXiv), in which case the archive paper can be referenced following normal practices.
• Do not include personal acknowledgements or the source of any grant funding that may identify the proposers.
• While proposers may note if they are resubmitting an ongoing proposal, they cannot indicate the proposal code, investigators' names, priority grade, and/or ranking of the previously accepted proposal.

For example, instead of

“This is a resubmission of our ongoing grade B program 2021.1.02045.S (PI: Smith). Half of our targets have been observed and we are resubmitting the proposal to obtain the remaining half.”

proposers can write

“This is a resubmission of our ongoing program. Half of the targets have been observed and we are resubmitting the proposal to observe the remaining half.”

Such text is normally included in the “duplication justification” on the proposal cover sheet or the first lines of the Scientific Justification. If data are shown from the ongoing program, it must be presented in a dual-anonymous fashion following the above guidelines.

 

Example text

Here is an example text that would need to be modified according to the guidelines, with the text to be changed in bold:

“We propose to perform a multi-band, beam-matched spectral scan of the central molecular zone of the nearby starburst galaxy NGC 253 in order to obtain the first template of extragalactic molecular complexity and calibrate extragalactic molecular diagnostics. To sample a wide range of molecular excitation states, we will scan the full ALMA bands 3, 4, 6, and 7. From our previous ALMA observations (Mangum+2015), we estimate that in band 6 and 7 we will obtain confusion limited spectra in most of the central region. Our pioneering studies of multi-band spectral scans (e.g., Costagliola+2015) show that the combined effect of more optically thin tracers and proper treatment of molecular excitation can lead to a tenfold increase in the sensitivity of molecular diagnostics to the physical properties of the ISM.”

 Here is the same text revised according to the guidelines:

“We propose to perform a multi-band, beam-matched spectral scan of the central molecular zone of the nearby starburst galaxy NGC 253 in order to obtain the first template of extragalactic molecular complexity and calibrate extragalactic molecular diagnostics. To sample a wide range of molecular excitation states, we will scan the full ALMA bands 3, 4, 6, and 7. Based on previous ALMA observations (Mangum+2015), we estimate that in band 6 and 7 we will obtain confusion limited spectra in most of the central region. Previous studies with multi-band spectral scans (e.g., Costagliola+2015) show that the combined effect of more optically thin tracers and proper treatment of molecular excitation can lead to a tenfold increase in the sensitivity of molecular diagnostics to the physical properties of the ISM.”

 

Guidelines pertaining only to Large Programs

As described in the Proposer's Guide, proposals for Large Programs consists of two parts:

1. The Scientific Justification, which must be prepared following the dual-anonymous guidelines described above.
2. A Management Plan that describes the team's expertise and background. This document can include the names and affiliations of at least the key members of the proposal team.

Further information on submitting Large Programs and the expected contents of the proposal can be found in the Proposer's Guide.

 

Compliance

PIs are required to anonymize their proposals. Reviewers will be instructed to notify the Proposal Handling Team (PHT) of any proposals that appear to violate the dual-anonymous guidelines. The PHT will follow up on each reported case. Any proposal that contains significant violations of the dual-anonymous guidelines may be rejected. PIs will be provided with feedback regarding any detected violations to avoid similar violations in future cycles. If this is the case, such information will be included in SnooPI, at the bottom of the individual reviews, and in the notification letter as a Note from the JAO.

In some cases, a proposal may be very specialized, and the identity of the proposal team may seem obvious to the reviewers even after the text is anonymized. As long as the guidelines to anonymize the proposals are followed, the proposal will not be considered in violation.

 

Guidelines for Reviewers

Proposals will be reviewed through either the distributed peer review process or the APRC. In order to keep the process focused on the science, we provide guidelines to follow during the proposal review:

• Reviewers should evaluate the proposals based on scientific merit.
• Reviewers should not try to guess the identities of the PI or the proposing team.
• In the APRC meeting, the APRC chair is responsible for refocusing the discussion on the science merit of the proposal if the panel begins to discuss the identity of the proposal team.
• Even if a reviewer feels that a proposal has not followed the guidelines for anonymity, they should continue to review the proposal based on scientific merit and notify the PHT as follows:
  • In distributed peer review, reviewers should use the box “Comment to JAO” via the Reviewer Tool.
  • APRC members should open an ALMA helpdesk ticket to the department called "Proposal Review Support"

 

Frequently Asked Questions

Answers to frequently asked questions are available on the dual-anonymous peer review FAQ page.

---

Return to the main ALMA Proposal Review page