What
Happens to Your Grant Application
A Primer for New Applicants
The Center
for Scientific Review (CSR) receives all NIH and many other
Public Health Service grant applications. Most investigator-initiated
applications for NIH funds are referred to CSR review groups.
The NIH Institutes and Centers (ICs) coordinate the review
of many IC-specific applications and use the same peer review
process described below.
Your application is assigned to a review group and an NIH
Institute or Center
One or
more CSR Referral Officers examines your application and determines
the most appropriate Integrated Review Group (IRG) to assess
it for scientific merit. Your application is then assigned
to one of the IRG’s study sections. A study section typically
includes 20 or more scientists from the community of productive
researches. Your application also will be assigned to the
NIH IC best suited to fund your application should it have
sufficient merit. (More than one IC may be assigned if appropriate.)
Referral
Officers follow established guidelines that define the review
boundaries of each study section. These boundaries frequently
overlap, and more than one study section may have the expertise
to review your application. You may request in a cover letter
with your application that it be assigned to a particular
study section or IC. The CSR referral office seriously considers
such requests.
The combined
expertise of the scientists in a study section is intended
to span the breadth and diversity of the science it covers.
CSR may recruit temporary reviewers or secure mail reviews
from outside consultants. Special Emphasis Panels also may
be formed on an ad-hoc basis to review applications when special
expertise is required or when special circumstances arise.
An
assignment notice is sent to you
Within 10 days of determining your assignments, CSR will send
notices to you and your sponsored research office. You may
question either your study section or IC assignment by contacting
the Scientific Review Administrator (SRA) noted in your letter
or the CSR referral office (301-435-0715). It usually takes
6 weeks to refer the 16,000 applications submitted each round.
If you do not receive your notice within this period, you
should contact the referral office.
Reviewers
are identified
Your SRA will analyze the content of your application, check
for completeness, and decide which study section members can
best review it or act as discussants. Unless a conflict of
interest exists, all study section members receive copies
of your application approximately 6 weeks before their meeting.
Typically, two or three members are asked to provide written
reviews of each application, and one or two additional members
serve as discussants.
Because
of the multi-month period between submission and review, applicants
often wish to submit additional materials. Before you do,
you should contact your SRA to ascertain the acceptable content,
format, and deadline.
Before
the study section meets, members list all R01 applications
believed to be in the lower half for scientific merit. If
all members agree, these applications are “streamlined.” The
will not be discussed at the meeting, but the assigned reviewers
will still provide written critiques. “Streamlining” is not
equivalent to disapproval.
The review
meeting is convened
Study section members convene for about 2 days. One member serves
as chair and conducts the meeting with the SRA. Relevant NIH
extramural staff are encouraged to attend, but they may not
participate. Assigned reviewers and discussants present their
evaluations and outside opinions are read. After a general discussion,
members mark their priority scores privately on scoring sheets,
which are later tabulated by CSR.
The
results are sent to you
Within a few days after the meeting, a computer-generated
letter with your priority score and percentile ranking is
automatically mailed to you. In about 6 weeks, your summary
statement will be delivered to the assigned IC, which will
send you a copy. It will include (1) the written critiques
produced by the assigned reviewers, (2) the SRA’s summary
of the study section’s discussion, (3) study section recommendations,
and (4) administrative notes of special consideration.
The
assigned NIH Institute or Center Takes Charge
After the review, an IC program officer will be your main
point of contact. He or she may help interpret your review
results or answer questions about the further consideration
of your application. In a second level of peer review, IC
Advisory Councils may consider the study section’s recommendations
and determine the relevance of your proposed research to IC
priorities and public health needs.
Get
More Information on Peer Review at CSR
CSR Policy,
Procedure & Review Guidelines Web Page
CSR
Best Practices Web Page
Get
General Grant Information
The NIH Office of Extramural Research
Grants (OER) Web page
provides a wealth of information on
funding opportunities, grant application forms, instructions,
and policies. It also operates the NIH GrantsInfo service,
which can be contacted via e-mail (grantsinfo@nih.gov) or
phone (301 435-0714). In addition, the OER Web site provides
information on the peer review
policies and procedures
pertaining
to all NIH components that conduct peer reviews.
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