The National Institutes of Health (NIH) proposed updates to their peer review process for “grants, cooperative agreements and research and development contracts within the agency’s Center for Scientific Review (CSR).”
The agency hopes to save over $65 million a year with the updated process.
According to NIH’s announcement, “the new centralization effort will apply to the first stage of the review process. NIH’s CSR, which was established in 1946 to manage the scientific review of NIH grant applications and to ensure independent, expert review free from inappropriate influence, currently manages the peer review process for more than 78% of NIH grants. The remaining 22% are reviewed in study sections within 23 ICs, each operating separately with its own administrative and support overhead. The proposed consolidation would eliminate the IC-based study sections so that CSR conducts all first-level review.”
