With the passing of the January transition date for new application forms and shorter page limits, as well as the big R01 submission due date in early February, NIH has met another significant milestone of the Enhancing Peer Review initiative. Applicants are now submitting restructured 12-page R01 applications and 6-page smaller applications.
Remarkably, the Enhancing Peer Review Web site earned nearly 2 million hits during December and almost half a million in January. The extensive communication efforts in support of Enhancing Peer Review appear to have paid off–the majority of applications received since the transition have complied with the new format, and applicants used the new ADOBE-FORMS-B packages. Kudos to the entire NIH community for making this happen!
“The eRA Service Desk experienced a lighter volume of calls and e-mails than we expected concerning the forms transition,” said Dave Hunter, Chief of eRA’s User Support Branch. “It appears NIH did a good job in informing the public long before the transition took place in late January.”
The electronic system will no longer accept the old ADOBE-FORMS-A versions of the application forms. The extended error-correction window, which was put in place to allow applicants who had not previously received the message to shorten and resubmit applications on the new forms, will remain in place until the May 7, 2010 due date.
Applications submitted on the new forms will be reviewed beginning in May of this year. If you are curious about how applications will fare under the new format, take a look at the guidance prepared for reviewers. It includes information about how scores might be impacted when applicants do not fully comply with the new application format.
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