The scientific peer review process benefits greatly when the study section reviewers bring not only strong scientific qualifications and expertise, but also a broad range of backgrounds and varying scientific perspectives. Bringing new viewpoints into the process replenishes and refreshes the study section, enhancing the quality of its output. In this context, CSR recently removed the requirement to have at least 50% full professors on committees. This had sometimes led to a misguided attempt to “do better than the metric” by aiming for a committee of all full professors. We are now encouraging scientific review officers (SROs) to focus on scientific contributions (demonstrable in a range of ways, e.g. recent publications, R01 or equivalent extramural funding from other sources, etc.), expertise, and breadth instead of trying to meet a career-stage metric. Our goal is to achieve a balance of perspectives by including a mix of qualified senior, mid-career, and junior
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The Center for Scientific Review established the Early Career Reviewer (ECR) program in late 2011 with two major goals – 1) to expose early-career scientists to the peer review process, with the ultimate goal of helping them to become more competitive as applicants, and 2) to enrich and diversify NIH’s pool of trained peer reviewers. We are delighted that the program has generated a lot of interest over the years. However, the strong response has also resulted in a significant backlog of potential ECRs, one that has existed since the program’s inception almost eight years ago. At this time, we have over 2,500 qualified ECRs in our system – a number that is increasing as we continue to publicize the program. In the past few years, we have made attempts to clear the backlog, with mixed results. We instituted a requirement to include an ECR on every recurring R01 study
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It is critical for the NIH and for CSR to ensure the integrity and impartiality of the peer review process. Service on peer review is neither a right nor a requirement. As an agency, we can exercise discretion on who we invite to serve, or continue to serve, on a peer review committee. We are not arbitrary in our actions, but there are many reasons we may choose not to include specific individuals on our peer review committees. For example, some individuals may have too many conflicts of interest, or too much review service, resulting in undue influence over an area of science. We may remove or not invite back a reviewer who has a pattern of submitting reviews late, requiring applications to be rereviewed. And we are particularly concerned when evidence arises that a peer reviewer may have breached confidentiality of the review process. These are just a few
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I am honored to have the opportunity to work with an incredibly dedicated staff in fulfilling CSR’s vital mission of ensuring that NIH grant applications receive fair, independent, expert, and timely reviews—free from inappropriate influences—so NIH can fund the most promising research. CSR’s singular focus on the first level of review based on scientific merit, its independence from any specific NIH funding institute or center, and its efficient operation make it a critically important link in advancing new and exciting discoveries across a broad spectrum of biomedical research. Below, I have outlined a few initial priorities for the Center. What binds these together is my personal commitment to strengthening the peer review process in a transparent manner, combining objective, data-driven approaches with significant engagement of the scientific community: Evaluating the quality of review and reviewers – making study sections nimble enough to adapt to rapidly evolving, increasingly multidisciplinary scientific fields,
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