NIH OFFICE OF EMERGENCY The NIH Peer Review Process

By Jeremy Brown, MD

In our previous columns we discussed the pros and cons of applying for National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, and how to find the right program officer for your project (and remember, the Golden Rule of applying to NIH: never apply without talking to a program officer!). Today we will look at what happens within the NIH after you hit the send button.

To begin, let us note the path that your project will take will depend on the kind of grant that it is (R01, U10, R13, K23), and which of the NIH Institutes is going to fund it if you are successful. The first point of entry for all the proposals is the Center for Scientific Review (CSR). The Division of Receipt and Referral (DRR) within the CSR receives and checks for compliance in all applications submitted to NIH. Then the DRR assigns each application: 1) to one or more institutes or centers for funding consideration and 2) to a study section (scientific review group) to evaluate the scientific and technical merit of the application. They also check the application for completeness and verify that there are no submissions of similar applications from the same principal investigator.

When you submit your proposal, you can request a specific awarding institute (but see the Golden Rule above) and the study section to which you would like it assigned. (These requests should be embedded in the PHS Assignment Request Form, and not in the cover letter that you may opt to send.)

There are about 250 different study sections; most meet three times a year, while others might meet only once,