Robert Finn | Aug 17, 1997 | 10 min read
As the agency overhauls its peer-review system, scientists assess the potential consequences. The peer-review system at the National Institutes of Health is in the midst of a critical series of reforms that will alter the way study sections judge and score grant applications. For the first time, reviewers will be required to consider five explicit criteria in judging grants, and one criterion will have the effect of placing a premium on innovative science. But NIH director Harold Varmus reject