- Find ways to identify and encourage the best reviewers. Could there be incentives to review grant applications? What might those entail? Supplement reviewers' extant grants? Cut service time from three times per year to twice per year?
- Reduce face-to-face meetings with reviewers, to help shorten the time spent reviewing and encourage others to participate.
- Set up two levels of review, similar to an editorial board model.
- Give applicants an opportunity to respond to preliminary comments about applications, establishing a dialogue between applicant and reviewer.
- Cut applications down to seven pages. If so, what should those pages focus on?
- Concentrate on one criterion: Innovation/impact.
- Shift the focus from projects to people, similar to how the HHMI operates. Under this program, researchers with a proven track record could obtain more regular support.
- Redo the scoring system. If so, how should it look? Suggestions ranged from reducing the score to a 7-point scale, and breaking down total score into several dimensions such as impact, investigator, and project, etc.
How to change NIH peer review?
Tell us what you think about the agency's ideas for improving how it evaluates grant applications
Written byThe Scientist
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