> But my experience has been that even when students are starting their doctorates there's very clear tiers -- even out of the pool of doctoral students in Oxford.

This might be true, but it's really really hard for someone who doesn't work with them day-to-day to distinguish.

Your article pointed out the same problem in getting novel worked reviewed - it was extremely hard to find people for that. I know in my case it was even worse - funding proposals generally come from research group leaders, and there at least you have a body of work to look at and can judge their likelihood to succeed.

But if you are trying to look at an individual's work how can you judge it when all you have to go on is peer reviews and maybe interviews with supervisors or peers?

Supervisors' motivations are already complicated - most of the time they would want an individual in their group funded because their work is generally aligned with that research group's field.

It's a pretty tricky problem.