  The selection of referees for evaluation of research projects under
competitive financing appears particularly critical: the greater the competence
of the referee concerning the core topic, the more their judgment is
trustworthy and the more the financing of the best proposals is probable. The
current work analyzes registers of experts used to select referees for the
evaluation of research proposals in public programs with competitive funding.
The work has the objective to present a methodology to verify the degree of
"coverage" of the register compared to the spectrum of competencies necessary
for the evaluation of such wide-ranging national programs; and to evaluate the
level of scientific performance of the register's referees in the hard
sciences, compared to the their national colleagues from the same fields.
