Monday, May 6, 2024     10:30 AM – 11:30 AM ET     Room W180

National Institutes of Health: Simplifying the Review of Research Project Grant Applications

Chair
Gretchen Diehl, Mem. Sloan Kettering Cancer Ctr., USA, AAI Committee on Public Affairs Chair

Speaker
Ross Shonat, CSR, NIH, USA

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is committed to ensuring that all applications for funding receive fair, independent, expert, and timely scientific reviews so the agency can fund the most promising research. NIH also continually focuses on efforts to improve peer review. This session will discuss NIH’s current initiative to simplify the peer review framework for research project grant applications. The agency’s ultimate goal is to identify the best, most innovative science with the potential to improve human health or advance our scientific understanding. The speaker will explain how the existing review criteria will be reorganized in a way that will help reviewers focus on the key questions needed to assess the scientific merit of applications: Can and should the proposed research be conducted? The presenter will discuss how these changes may also help to reduce the potential for reputational bias in review. The new framework will take effect for most research project grant applications with due dates on or after January 25, 2025. Learn more at https://grants.nih.gov/policy/peer/simplifying-review.htm.