NIH Wants to Remove Peer Review Scores From Grant Applications

The National Institutes of Health has proposed changing how it evaluates grant applications in a way that would make the process more opaque. Officials want to remove traditional peer-review application scores and replace them with 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 percentile), and “not discussed” (for those that fall below the 50th percentile or are not considered).

The agency announced the proposal in a request for information posted Friday, seeking public comment on the suggested changes until Oct. 13.

Under the current NIH process, a minimum of three peer reviewers evaluate each grant proposal and assign it a score between 1 and 9. Researchers are given a composite score and summary notes, which they can then compare to other published awards to see how they measure up and whether they need to revise their application to win an award.

If the proposed changes are adopted, the scoring process would remain largely the same—except “the final overall impact score or percentile on which the categorization was based would not be released,” according to the announcement.

“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.”

The move is the latest in the Trump administration’s efforts to minimize the role of peer review in scientific grant making and assume more government oversight of the process. The president issued an executive order last August putting “senior appointees” in charge of grant approvals. And in May the White House Office of Management and Budget proposed a rule that would allow political appointees—not peer reviewers—to determine who gets grants, even giving them the power to rescind already-awarded funds.

According to the NIH announcement, the latest proposal grew out of “a working group of NIH leaders” convened late last year to review the agency’s funding framework and “consider peer review outcomes in the context of their and NIH’s priorities, strategic plans, and budgets.”

It argues that assigning a grant application a category rather than a numerical score “conveys valuable information about the assessed scientific merit from peer review of without providing over-emphasis on overall impact scores. Omitting a final overall impact score from what is reported will empower program officials to utilize their substantial expertise, portfolio analyses, and good judgment to make award recommendations that better incorporate [Institutes, Centers and Offices] strategic plans and NIH priorities. The removal of final overall impact scores also supports a focus on substantive comments from the assigned reviewers and the panel, elevating the role of scientific peer review.”