Peer and Organizational Review in the Post Vannevar Bush Era

This commentary concentrates on research and development (R&D) enterprises, with a focus on peer review, primarily as used in manuscript review. This commentary also examines the technology transformation process and how peer review and organizational review serve each other, quite effectively. The key arguments made are that (1) peer review is not without its own problems; (2) it should be understood that peer review is focused largely on the most basic of scientific endeavors (i.e., discovery and not technology development), and (3) technical reporting (i.e., scientific or engineering writing in which there is organizational/vertical review) plays the major role in the actual transformation of ideas into wealth.