In March 2008, the NIH Extramural Nexus released a special enhancing peer review edition announcing the end of the year-long diagnostic phase and release of the final report. The report drafted by the Advisory Committee to the Director and the NIH Steering Committee identified the most significant challenges and proposed recommendations that would enhance this system in the most transformative manner. Recommendations were developed with the overarching goal to “…fund the best science, by the best scientists, with the least amount of administrative burden…” as summarized by Dr. Elias Zerhouni, NIH Director.
Following the release of the report, Dr. Zerhouni established a Peer Review Oversight Committee (PROC) to solidify a final set of recommendations and initiate implementation of those recommendations. The PROC, chaired by NIH Deputy Director, Dr. Raynard Kington, established Subgroups consisting of NIH program, review, grants management, and evaluation staff to assist with this implementation effort.
The implementation effort is focused around:
- Fulfilling the mission of funding the best science, by the best scientists;
- Developing approaches that minimize administrative burden for the applicant and review community;
- Communicating clearly the changes to policies, processes and guidelines to the applicant community, reviewers and staff at NIH and other federal agencies;
- Defining metrics and developing plans to obtain data to evaluate the impact of proposed policy changes once implemented;
The final set of recommendations is organized into the following four priority areas.
Priority 1 – Engage the Best Reviewers
The excellence of peer review is directly correlated with the ability to recruit and retain the most accomplished, broad-thinking, and creative scientists to serve on NIH study sections. Peer review service should be flexible, gratifying and maximize the ability and interest of qualified scientist to serve. Goals include:
- Developing policies that allow reviewers to adjust their commitment to participate in review sessions across a longer period of time for more flexibility;
- Enhancing review performance by providing additional training and mentoring based on best practices;
- Developing policies that acknowledge all reviewers and their intellectual involvement, particularly those who have demonstrated their commitment with a history of outstanding and sustained service at study section meetings ;
- Defining service expectations for Principal Investigators (PIs) of certain classes of NIH grant awards;
- Enhancing recruitment strategies to attract a greater number of accomplished extramural and intramural investigators to serve as reviewers.
Priority 2 – Quality & Transparency of Review
The peer review process must strive for maximum clarity, fairness, and consistency and help applicants determine a best course of action once reviewed. The process of review should focus on the potential impact, originality, and feasibility of the proposed research. Goals include:
- Realigning the structure of applications, review criteria, summary statements, and the rating processes to assess the potential impact, originality and feasibility of the proposed research;
- Shortening applications starting with R01s and reduce page lengths of other mechanisms appropriately;
- Providing applicants with more detailed feedback from the review process.
Priority 3 – Provide Balanced and Fair Reviews Across Scientific Fields and Career Stages
Peer review should fairly evaluate proposals from all scientists, regardless of their career stage or discipline, and avoid bias towards more conservative and proven approaches at the expense of innovation and originality. Goals include:
- Continuing to support and develop policies that support the unique needs of Early Stage Investigators (ESI), New (to NIH) investigators, and Clinical Researchers;
- For more established investigators, placing significant emphasis on a retrospective assessment of accomplishments as well as a prospective assessment of what is being proposed;
- Encouraging and expand upon the Pioneer, EUREKA and New Innovator awards programs to encourage risk taking by applicants, and continue to grow the Transformative Research portfolio;
- Establishing policies, carefully and progressively, to rebalance and reduce the need for resubmissions, thereby increasing system efficiency and reducing burden on the applicants and reviewers.
Priority 4 – Continuous Review of Peer Review
The last priority is to develop a permanent process for continuous review of peer review. Peer review should continuously adapt itself to the evolution of science. The NIH peer review process will commit to a continuous quality control and improvement process based on a rigorous and independent prospective evaluation that favors innovative approaches to review and program management.
Plans for Implementation
The “peer review enhancement” effort is part of NIH’s longstanding commitment to supporting promising and meritorious biomedical and behavioral research using diverse approaches, strategies and mechanisms. In this issue of the Nexus we have highlighted several activities that use dramatically different application and review processes:
Look for information in the October 2008 edition of the Nexus that will highlight forthcoming changes. We will keep you abreast of developments in future editions of the Nexus and updates to the Enhancing Peer Review Web site.
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