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Well, we’re not sure there is only one secret, but we do know that learning as much as you possibly can is a great start. And we know you are doing that because the questions and answers we pose here in the Nexus are some of the most viewed content each month.
So now it’s your turn. Let us know what questions you have about applying for or managing your awards. Comment below, send a tweet to @NIH_OER, or email us by clicking on “Contact Us” at the top of the page.
1. What should one do, when two reviewers contradict each others while reviewing the same proposal? One says “novel approach” “great science” and other says “not novel” “no science” for the same proposal.
2. Questions and comments from reviewers have not changed while format and number of re-submission are drastically reduced recently.
3. For one of my grant, I received score “5” from reviewers for the environment in first submission and in next submission, i received “1” for the same institute/environment. Can anyone make it clear to me how am I supposed to make a sense from this?
4. It is often rightfully argued that statistical power is essential to reduce bias of an experiment. Isn’t this logic true for considering number of reviewers, judging a proposal? One reviewer may have strong bias on subject matter. There is not much turn around time since we have now left with one re-submission.
5. There should not be any limit to re-submission. If someone can improve their ideas over multiple re-submission, it is good for science.
Thanks
Thanks for the questions Susanta. We’ll do our best to answer them in subsequent posts.
We’ve addressed the “what to do about conflicting reviewers/scores” question in this post: http://nexus.od.nih.gov/all/2011/07/27/what-can-you-do-when-two-reviewers-contradict-each-other/.
1. Unfortunately, no two reviewers are like. Generally it is better to cover all aspects of novelty, technical and conceptual. In addition, what is novel to one reviewer (e.g. over expressing of genes) may be routine and mundane for another. It depends on the topic, expertise, relevance, and competition with other grants.
2. It might depend on the study section and executive secretary. Many don’t allow damaging comments or comments about model, types of cells etc. Many progressive executive secretaries give very precise instructions to the reviewers.
3. The concept of environment has changed dramatically. Almost all applicants have equipment, lab space, computers, etc. What matters is the core supports, other investigators, overall strength of the University etc.
4. You can’t expect 10 reviewers looking at one grant. For the money reviewers get for the time they spend, it is impossible for all reviewers to review all grants.
My complaints:
1. Hide applicant’s identity and institution. No references, no mention of anything identifiable. A non-scientist reviewer panel/administrators look at non-scientific contents.
2. Eliminate triage (unscored) catagory. Often reviewers “revive” grants of their friends/people they know. An unknown applicant has very little chance of making it to top 50%.
3. Sadly, many reviewers look at the grants at the last minute.
4. Study sections recycle reviewers again and again. On the other hand, I would rather trust experienced senior investigators as reviewers rater than fresh young reviewers. They are often poorly read, brash, opinionated, and punitive.
5. Spread the money. Most modular grants don’t deserve the money they request. Reviewers are quite lax about money. The same goes to the durationof the grants.
6. Many applicants send the grants without any prescruitiny from anyone in the applicant’s institution. Sadly, about 50% of the applications are way below one would expect from a trained scientist.
7. I still see plagerism, questionable data, questionable science, etc.
8. Anyone can make any study connected to any physiology if they are smart. Applicants pay very little attendtion to significance. I still see “…. is the number one killer in the Western world..” etc.
9. Be aware that not everyone could get funded. There is simply not enough money to go around.
I totally agree with Susanta’s comment on resubmission. There should no limitation on resubmission of grant proposals. Resubmission should be determined by scientific reviewers. If a proposal has a great science but poor writing, it should be allowed for resubmission.
Please contain your comments on this post to questions that would be helpful for the general audience. There was a lively discussion in a previous post about resubmissions here that you can read and join.
If I have a submitted grant that did pretty well on scoring, does it help its chances of being funded to talk to the program officer, or no? Does it help in certain circumstances?
@ScienceGirl Thanks for the question. We answered your question here: http://nexus.od.nih.gov/all/2011/07/26/my-app-received-a-good-score-do-i-need-to-talk-to-my-program-officer/