NIH Introduces New Grant Criteria and Scoring

As further steps in its agency-wide project to improve its peer-review system, NIH has announced enhanced review criteria for research grants and a new scoring system to rate them. The new criteria will be used to assess all grant applications submitted for funding consideration for fiscal year 2010 and thereafter. Background information and the criteria themselves were published in NIH’s Notice # NOT-OD-09-025 issued December 2, 2008. The full text of the notice, titled “Enhancing Peer Review: The NIH Announces Enhanced Review Criteria for Evaluation of Research Applications Received for Potential FY2010 Funding” is available on the NIH website.

At the same time, NIH announced a new scoring procedure to be applied to the new research grant review criteria in the decision-making process.  The new scoring system will use a 9-point rating scale. The details of the new scoring system and how it will be implemented were published on December 2, 2008 in NIH Notice # NOT-OD-09-024, entitled “Enhancing Peer Review: The NIH Announces New Scoring Procedures for Evaluation of Research Applications Received for Potential FY 2010 Funding.”  The full text of the notice can be found on the NIH website.