NIH Proposes Changes to How It Will Evaluate Grant Applications
Critics fear the proposal would make the grant-making process more opaque and political.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued a request for information (RFI)proposing changes to its evaluation of grant applications.
Current Process: Under the current process, the NIH uses numerical overall impact scores. At least three peer reviewers evaluate each grant proposal and assign it a score from 1 to 9. Researchers receive a composite score and summary notes, which they can compare with published awards to see how they measure up and whether they need to revise their application to win an award.
Proposed Change: NIH proposes to generally use the same process, except that “the final overall impact score or percentile on which the categorization was based would not be released,” according to the announcement. Instead, scores would be replaced by three broad categories: “most competitive” (for those that score in the top 25 percent for “overall impact”), “competitive” (for applications that score between the 26th and 50th percentiles), and “not discussed” (for those that fall below the 50th percentile or are not considered).
Rationale for Change: The NIH states that the proposed change aims to reduce score fixation, emphasize qualitative feedback, and better align with other agency processes.
Initial Response to the Proposal: Critics fear the proposed changes would reduce transparency in the grant-awarding decision-making process. “Without clearly indicated scores, decision-making about who does and doesn’t get NIH grants could become a whole lot more opaque and political,” according to Forbes, which first reported the news. “Instead of scientific merit, a grant could be funded or not funded purely based on, for example, whether the U.S. President or a political appointee has a particular score to settle.”
This RFI follows a highly controversial proposed rule issued in May that elevated political appointees' role in the grantmaking process across the federal government. Comments are due October 13.
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For more information and questions, please contact:
Sheila Madhani
Madhani Healthcare Consulting
Email: smadhani@madhani-health.com
Tel: (202) 679-2977