Transcript What Happens After Your Grant is Handed to the FedEx Guy

What Happens After your Grant is Handed
to the FedEx Guy
Arrival at the NIH
• All grants arrive in one central office
• Each grant is assigned a grant number, to an
Institute, and to a Study Section for review
• In several weeks, you will receive a notice with
this information
The NIH Institutes (Branches)
• Each has an intramural program (investigators who
work at and receive direct support from the NIH) and
extramural program (all of the grantees in the scientific
community outside of the NIH)
• Each branch has areas of research interest which
influence funding decisions, dictate “RFPs or requests
for proposals” (announcements about specific funding
opportunities for which money has been set aside)
– Watch for RFPs to see if your work fits
• Each branch has its own “pay line”, a score below
which (low scores are good!!) a grant will be funded
– Think about targeting your grant to a specific
Institute
Your Grant Number
• The type of grant
– For example RO1, KO8, PO1 and if it is new or has been
around a while
• For example, 1R01 versus 2R01
• The institute to which it has been assigned
– For example, CA for Cancer, GM for General Medicine
– May have two listed, CA/HL, Cancer and Heart Lung
• The grant number
• The year of the grant
– A new grant will be -01, a continuing grant will be -04, 05, 06
etc
• If the grant is a resubmission (previously sent in, but
not funded) an “A” designation
– A1 first resubmission
– A2 second resubmission (this is your last chance)
The Study Section
• Based on key words in the title and abstract, your grant
will be assigned to an Institute and a Study Section
– A group of your peers, mostly from academic institutions but
others as well (investigators from biotech, pharma, etc), who
are charged with reviewing grant applications in a non-biased
manner focusing solely on scientific merit
• The study section is chaired by a senior investigator
with prior review experience
• Study section members meet 3 times per year. Each
permanent member is expected to serve a four year
term
• Each meeting will include ad hoc members (noted by
an asterisk on the roster list)
Your SRA (Scientific Review Administrator)
• An NIH employee (works for the CSR [Center for
Scientific Review]) who coordinates efforts of the Study
Section. The SRA is responsible for making sure that
all grants are reviewed fairly
• The name of your SRA and his/her contact information
are listed on the grant assignment notification
• The SRA is neutral and will not tell you about details of
the review
• You can contact this person for questions about your
submission prior to the review (for example, is
supplemental material allowed, if so, when, etc), but
not about the review itself
Your Reviewers
• The study section chair and SRA will assign each grant
to three reviewers: a primary, secondary, and reader
• Each reviewer is required to read the grant thoroughly
and prepare a critique
• Both the primary and secondary reviewers prepare
written critiques, which the applicant will eventually
see. Occasionally the “reader” will also prepare a
written evaluation, which the applicant will also see
• The review is based on the original grant as well as
supplementary material (usually up to three pages),
which can be submitted several weeks before the
review
The Review Process
• Prior to the study section, reviewers will evaluate the
grants, prepare reviews which are submitted
electronically, and submit a preliminary score
• Grants are scored from 1 to 5, with one being the best
• Rarely, a grant will be determined not appropriate for
further consideration. This decision is made only if
there is a major problem making the reviewer feel that
the grant is inappropriate
• Reviewers are also asked to determine if a particular
grant would likely fall into the bottom half of the scores.
Those grants may be “triaged” at the study section
• Once reviews are submitted, the other reviewers’
comments can be viewed by members of the Study
Section
The Study Section Meeting (I)
• The study section meets every four months, usually in
February, June, and October. Grants are reviewed that
were submitted about five months previously
• The meeting begins with introductions and the SRA
describing the rules about the discussion to be held,
voting processes, etc
• The SRA will have assembled a list of grants for which
one, two, or three of the reviewers recommended
“triage”. A brief discussion is held about whether or not
to triage each of these grants. If all reviewers agree,
the remainder of the study section is asked if any of the
proposed triaged grants should be discussed and
scored. A triage list is then generated
• Triaged grants are not discussed. The applicants will
receive unedited comments from the reviewers
The Study Section Meeting (II)
• Your Program Officer
– The non-triaged grants are then discussed in an order based
on institute and grant number. Institute representatives
(program officers) are present at the study section as
observers, and they remain only for the grants belonging to
their institute. Every grant therefore should have a program
officer present for the discussion
– Unlike the SRA who is neutral, the Program Officer is on
your side. They will listen to the discussion and take notes.
They generally are silent at the Study Section but can give you
feedback and advice once the discussion is over
– You should talk to and make friends with your Program
Officer. They can be very helpful. Call after the Study
Section has met
The Study Section Meeting (III)
The Review Criteria
• All reviews are prepared based on five criteria. Each
criterion impacts your grant’s score, although some
have greater influence than others
– Significance
• Is the project important, or “Who Cares?”
• If significance is high, it is a plus. If no one cares
whether or not your project is done, it is a minus.
For most grants, significance is considered high,
but not amazing and has little impact on the final
score.
The Study Section Meeting (IV)
The Review Criteria
– Approach (What is the experimental plan?)
• The most critical aspect of the review
– Is there a clear hypothesis?
– Is the approach flawed or reasonable?
– Are alternatives presented?
– How will the results be interpreted?
– Are the best available scientific approaches being
employed?
– Is the grant too ambitious (almost always a concern
for junior investigators)? More rarely, does the grant
not go far enough?
• All of these questions must be clearly answered in the
proposal
The Study Section Meeting (V)
The Review Criteria
– Innovation
• Are the approaches standard (perhaps outdated) or new
and clever?
– You are not hurt by using standard, state-of-the-art
techniques, but are hurt if you are using old
approaches that have been proven to be inferior to
newer techniques
– Generally, this aspect does little to influence your
score, unless you are proposing a clever new
technology which will help your score or if your
methods are clearly inappropriate for the studies
The Study Section Meeting (VI)
The Review Criteria
– Investigator
• Are you well trained, experienced, and able to do
the work described?
• If you are a senior investigator, have you been
productive?
• If you are a new investigators, especially if your
are staying at the same institution where you
trained, are you independent?
– Independence requires an institutional
commitment, talk to your chair!
The Study Section Meeting (VII)
The Review Criteria
– Environment
• Does your institution have the resources
for you to do the work (core facilities, lab
space, etc)?
• Do you have access to these resources?
• Are there others around who can help?
• Generally, environment is not an issue for
grants from Penn
The Study Section Meeting (VIII)
Discussing the Grants
• The non-triaged grants are discussed in order
• Each of the reviewers (primary, secondary, and reader)
provide a score
• The primary reviewer then describes the grant and
discusses his/her assessment based on each of the
review criteria
– Other study section members may ask questions or give their
perspectives
• The secondary reviewer then discusses how he/she
agrees or disagrees with the primary reviewer,
generally a much shorter discussion
• The reader does the same as the secondary reviewer
The Study Section Meeting (IX)
Discussing the Grants (cont)
• After all of the assigned reviewers present their views,
the grant is open for discussion by the entire Study
Section
• When the discussion comes to a natural conclusion,
each of the reviewers provides a new score based on
what has been discussed
– Scores may change or may remain the same. Often, the
range of scores is small (ie there is considerable agreement);
however, the range may be quite high even after a very long
discussion
• All members of the study section then record their
votes confidentially
The Study Section Meeting (X)
Discussing the Grants
• After everyone votes, the reviewers are then asked
about the budget and length of time for support.
– They may recommend to fund as requested or to decrease
(never increase) the budget
– A justification must be provided to decrease the budget or the
requested length of time
– The study section then votes by a show of hands on the “time
and amount”
• The reviewers then indicate if there are concerns about
animals or human subjects. If so, an administrative
note is made
• Neither budget nor animal/human subjects discussion
influences the score of the grant
The Study Section Meeting (XI)
• Once all of the grants have been discussed, everyone
rushes out to National Airport to get the next plane
home
• The process is exhausting and time consuming. Most
reviewers are responsible for 8 to 12 grants. The
meeting itself last 1-2 days, usually with a working
lunch
• My experience is that everyone tries hard to be fair
Scoring the Grants
• After the meeting, all of the scores are tabulated. They
are then compared to the previous two rounds of that
study section and normalized (the assumption being
that the scores should average similarly from meeting
to meeting, but that reviewers may not be completely
consistent)
• Scores are then converted to percentiles with the
lowest being the best (what percentage of grants
scored better than you). The percentile matters, not
your absolute score
• Funding decisions are made several months later by
the institutes (at the meeting of their councils), but you
can get a good sense based on your percentile
• Funding varies from institute to institute
When are the Results Available?
• Your score will be available within a few days of the
study section meeting
– Can be accessed via the web (the Commons website)
– You can call your Program Officer
• Regardless of the score, it is worth a call to your
Program Officer to find out what they heard at the
study section
– If things went well, you become a voice, not just a grant
– If things did not go well, you can get a sense of what to do next
When are the Results Available?
The Pink Sheets
• Four to six weeks after the review, the critique will be
available on the Commons Website
• If the grant was discussed (not triaged), the SRA will
have provided a summary of the discussion indicating
the major points (positive and negative) brought up at
the study section
• The written reviews (largely unedited) follow
• The roster of the study section is also provided
• Read the pink sheets carefully!
Getting Funded
• The institute councils meet one to two months after the
study sections. It is then that final funding decisions
are made
• These are generally based strictly on percentiles,
however there is some room for discretion
– Program officers can request that an occasional grant be
funded out of order (“select pay”) based on programmatic
issues or other unusual circumstances
– It is worth knowing your Program officer and for them to know
how important and topical your work is
What if You Do Not Get the Money?
• Try again
– Get advice from the Program Officer
– Carefully read the pink sheets
– Discuss the grant and reviews with senior colleagues with
expertise in the subject area of your grant
• Before resubmitting the grant, make sure you can
address the major critiques
– The next reviewers will see the pink sheets from the previous
submission
– The most important things to address will be in the summary
paragraph written by the SRA
– If you cannot do what they want, have a good reason why you
need not
– In the resubmission, answer all of the major concerns (both in
your three page introduction and the body of the grant)