Guest post by Dr. Christine Hunter, Acting Director, NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research; Dr. Valerie Durrant, Director of the Division of AIDS, behavioral and Population Sciences at the Center for Scientific Review; and Ms. Elan E. Ey, Deputy Director, Client Services Division, NIH Office of Human Resources. Originally released on July 7, 2022, on the OBSSR Director’s Voice Blog. Our hope with this blog is to highlight some exciting career paths at NIH for behavioral and social scientists that offer the opportunity to be highly engaged in shaping the future of the scientific enterprise. Science administrator jobs at NIH, called Program Officers (PO) and Scientific Review Officers (SRO), primarily involve planning, directing, and managing the evaluation of the science to ensure the best health-relevant research now and in the future. The PO and SRO roles are quite different, but each require a high level of scientific expertise
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Have you applied for, sponsored, or reviewed NIH fellowship applications? We would like to hear your thoughts on what works, what doesn’t, and how the process could be improved. National Research Service Award (NRSA) Fellowship (F) awards are intended to support training that will enhance pre- and post-doctoral trainees’ potential to develop into productive, independent research scientists. In 2021, CSR handled the review of more than 5500 of the approximately 6800 NRSA F applications received by NIH. We recently convened a CSR Advisory Council working group, charged with evaluating the fellowship review process and making recommendations to make it as effective and fair as possible for all. The working group has noted multiple concerns, many of which center around the challenges of discerning the potential of the applicant and the value of the training planned, as opposed to the general reputation of the school and sponsor. There are concerns that
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An anniversary is a time for reflection on our history, the goals we’ve accomplished, the challenges we’ve surmounted, and the lessons we’ve learned along the way. Our video, “Catalyst of Hope and Health,” reflects on CSR’s work over the past 75 years to ensure that grant applications sent to NIH receive fair, independent, expert, and timely scientific reviews that are free from inappropriate influences, so NIH can fund the most promising research. Since its establishment, CSR has also sought to continually improve. I invite you to watch the video to learn about this ongoing commitment to a high-quality, fair review process that serves to advance NIH’s mission. It features former NIH director Dr. Francis Collins and additional NIH leaders such as Drs. Marie Bernard, Anthony Fauci, and Michael Lauer, as well as NIH historian Dr. Richard Mandel, present and former CSR advisory council members, and reviewers and scientific review officers.
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How will study sections meet in the future? NIH peer review depends on robust meetings where groups of scientists, through vigorous discussion, identify the applications of highest merit. For the last 75 years, until last March, nearly all chartered review committee meetings were held in-person. Today, in response to the pandemic, 90% of all CSR review meetings are run as video (“Zoom”) meetings. CSR is taking steps now so that when all options are back on the table, we can make informed choices about how best to convene review meetings. Last round we obtained survey responses from 3,000 NIH reviewers, ratings by scientific review officers (SRO) of 230 review meetings, compiled quantitative data comparing in-person versus Zoom instances of over 275 meetings, analyzed rosters from those meetings, and also surveyed our support staff. The data give no indication that the forced switch to Zoom has introduced major problems. Quality of
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CSR has launched an online portal through which scientific societies may recommend scientists to serve as NIH reviewers. This comes in response to requests from professional societies for a way to recommend potential reviewers and is part of CSR’s ongoing efforts to refresh and expand the pool of well-qualified reviewers in every area of science. This new online tool is easy to use and, by gathering key review-relevant information, makes it much more likely that scientific review officers will be able to find and invite the scientists who are recommended. We ask that scientific societies vet reviewer qualifications before entering the recommendations. They should be scientists who are generally interested in serving as reviewers. Scientific expertise, extramural funding, and productivity are examples of qualifications. In addition, we strongly encourage societies to recommend productive scientists from diverse backgrounds and career stages – e.g. assistant, associate, and full professors. Early career scientists
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CSR will conduct all summer peer review meetings using one of three platforms – 1) video; 2) telephone; 3) web-based discussion. A majority will take place using the Zoom video platform. We want to provide information about how we are maintaining the security and confidentiality of our review meetings. The Zoom video platform that we are using is not the same as that used by schools or by you at home. Instead, we are using a FedRAMP-certified version of Zoom within the zoomgov.com domain. It meets requirements for other agencies that handle very sensitive information, including the Department of Homeland Security. FedRAMP certification means, for reviewers, the platform can be used without risking installation of malware and, for applicants, meetings remain confidential. Key features include:   – All video traffic is highly encrypted and continuously monitored via stringent security controls in place   – Strong configuration management is in place
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Over the past several years we have heard consistent concerns about the complexity of review criteria and administrative load of peer review. CSR shares the concern that the current set of standards has the unintended consequence of dividing reviewer attention among too many questions, thus reducing focus on scientific merit and increasing reviewer burden. Each element was intended make review better, but we worry that the cumulative whole may in fact distract from the main goal of review — to get input from experts on the scientific and technical merit of the proposed work. To address these concerns, CSR has convened a working group of our advisory council, charged with recommending changes to research project grant review criteria that will improve review outcomes and reduce reviewer burden. The group is co-chaired by Tonya Palermo and me, and includes some of our council members, other members of the scientific community, and
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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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