The National Institutes of Health’s recent proposal to replace peer review scores with broad categories “would reduce transparency” and make it “harder to understand why an application was or was not selected for funding.”
That’s the concern the University of Michigan raised in a letter submitted this week to the NIH in response to the proposed changes, which would significantly alter how the agency reports the outcomes of peer review for grant applications.
Additionally, the university called on the agency to continue providing final overall impact scores and percentiles, which give investigators context for interpreting written critiques and deciding whether and how to revise an application. “Preserving timely access to underlying scores and percentiles remains our preferred approach,” the letter states.
Under the proposal, NIH would place applications into one of three categories – “Most competitive,” “Competitive” or “Not discussed” – and would no longer share the final overall impact score or percentile behind that designation with investigators, their institutions or the agency’s own program staff. Written critiques and criterion scores would still be provided.
The letter’s five recommendations also call on NIH to more clearly separate the scientific assessment of an application from the subsequent funding decision, evaluate the effects on researchers before implementing the change broadly and, if numerical scores are withheld, use five 10-percentage-point bands in place of two 25-percentage-point bands.
The university submitted the letter after seeking feedback from U-M researchers and research administrators. U-M joins a number of universities and organizations – including the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities and COGR – in submitting a response.