CSR’s Advisory Council recently asked NIH to consider five ideas for helping applicants with promising research ideas to stay in the game despite historically low funding rates. Because these ideas deal with trans-NIH policies beyond CSR, Council members asked CSR’s Director to share them with the appropriate NIH officials.
CSR Council Ideas
1. Treat all applications as new and let investigators instead of
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NIH decide when resubmission is futile. Council members suggested that the resulting reviews would be more independent and simplified since earlier reviews would not be considered. Reviewers might also be more focused on merit because they wouldn’t get sidetracked by considering how investigators responded to previous reviews.
Our Council suggested doing a pilot where investigators who opt-in could resubmit any R01 application as many times as they wanted, but they could submit no more than two research project grant applications in any 12 month period. Reviewers would be encouraged to send strong messages about applications that need substantial revision.
2. Encourage more NIH Institutes and Centers (ICs) to allow investigators to respond to their reviews prior to Council consideration so very promising applications that might slip through the system could be identified. Principal investigators (PIs) with “gray zone” applications would be asked to provide a response to their reviews. IC Program staff would submit these comments and applications to their Councils, which provide the second level of peer review.
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