In June I wrote that we intended to re-evaluate our Early Career Reviewer (ECR) Program. Thanks to the work and ideas of many people, including some of you, I can provide you with an update. In July, I convened a CSR Advisory Council Working Group, comprising two members of the CSR Advisory Council (Drs. Mark Peifer and Elizabeth Villa), two CSR SROs (Drs. Kristin Kramer and Antonello Pileggi), and four scientists who recently served as ECRs (Dr. Vinay Aakalu, University of Illinois at Chicago; Dr. Stephanie Cook, New York University; Dr. Lisa Jones, University of Maryland; and Dr. Manuel Llano, University of Texas at El Paso). I am very grateful to all the members of this working group for their thoughtful recommendations, which were informed by the members who had direct experience as ECRs, as well as by ECR survey results and input from the broader scientific community of early career scientists, such as the New PI Slack community.

The ECR program is part of CSR’s support for early career investigators and commitment to diversity in science; through it we expose early-career scientists to the peer review process in the belief that it will help them to become more competitive as applicants and, ultimately, enrich and diversify NIH’s pool of trained peer reviewers. Those goals have not changed. The committee recommended, and we are implementing, changes designed to 1) increase utilization of ECRs in review meetings, 2) ensure that criteria for participation in the program are applied uniformly, 3) ensure that ECRs benefit maximally from their experience, and 4) improve our ability to track program outcomes. The program will be better focused on our goals of increasing the competitiveness of early career scientists for R01 funding and increasing access to the ECR program for early career scientists. We remain committed to increasing diversity on our study sections by continuing increased recruitment of groups traditionally underrepresented on panels such as women, underrepresented minorities, and scientists from smaller institutions.

The full report of the working group and the discussion at the September 23rd CSR Advisory Council are available. Additional input was provided by CSR staff. The resulting criteria are posted on the ECR Program pages and are summarized below.

Changes to Eligibility Criteria for the ECR program

• Publication requirement relaxed to 1 research publication as senior author (first, last, corresponding) in the last 2 years, plus 1 senior-authored research publication since finishing a doctorate degree, from the prior requirement of 2 senior-authored research publications in the last 2 years.
• Participants must be an Assistant Professor or in a similar or equivalent role. Because the program is focused on early career scientists, Associate Professors will not be eligible for the program. CSR encourages SROs to recruit Associate Professors (and those at the Assistant Professor level who are overqualified for this program) through regular channels. Also note, service as an ECR is not a pre-requisite for later review service.
• No review experience at the NIH, aside from as a mail reviewer. Prior eligibility criteria allowed for review service at NIH Institutes/Centers other than CSR.
• New requirement of having submitted a grant application to the NIH and received the corresponding summary statement. All NIH grant mechanisms meet this requirement except F30, F31, and F32.
• Restricted to New Investigators – i.e. those who have never held R01 or R01-equivalent grants. Prior criteria did not allow investigators with an R01 but did allow those with R01-equivalent grants. (Investigators at any career stage with R01 or R01-equivalent grants are eligible to serve as reviewers outside the ECR program.)
• Consistency in applying the criteria through establishment of a new CSR committee to vet ECR applicants, a change from vetting by individual SROs across CSR.

Changes to Increase Opportunities for ECRs

• Increase ECR recruitment at CSR. Chartered study sections will now be required to recruit two ECRs to serve as reviewers, instead of one. Special emphasis panels reviewing research grants, will recruit one to two ECRs, depending on the number of applications in the panel.
• Encourage the review branches of the funding institutes/centers to use ECRs from our database. We will publicize the program across NIH.
• Better management of our database to reduce wait time for ECRs wishing to serve. Reduce the backlog of ECRs in our database by contacting eligible ECRs to confirm continued interest. Those who respond in the negative or do not respond will be removed. We will institute annual queries.

Improved Training Resources

• We will formalize best practices for SROs in training of and feedback to ECRs, to improve upon the value of serving as a reviewer.
• We are increasing our outreach activities at scientific societies and plan to produce a new mock study section video to provide an inside look at the peer review process to those who may not have the opportunity to serve as an ECR.

The eligibility and increased usage changes will be effective for the February/March 2020 review meetings. It will take longer to develop additional training, new videos, and mock panels but we will begin work on these soon. Providing early career scientists an inside look at the peer review process is a priority for CSR and many outreach efforts are already underway. We hope these steps will effectively balance our primary mission at CSR with our desire to provide opportunities to early career scientists and broaden our pool of reviewers. We recognize that the changes to criteria and the increase in number of ECRs at each meeting will still not allow all who are interested to participate. Our hope is that increased outreach and new resources will provide some valuable insight into the review process for those who do not qualify or have not yet been recruited.