Scientific Reviewer

Position Information

Provide qualified scientific and operational services to support the planning, coordination, conduct, and documentation of NIH peer review activities in accordance with applicable NIH and CSR policies, procedures, guidance, and established review schedules. Collaborate with SROs, CSR leadership, reviewers, and review support staff to ensure assigned review activities and deliverables are completed accurately, consistently, and within established requirements and deadlines.

Responsibilities

• Identify the administrative and scientific issues in grant applications or contract proposals, including hypotheses and rationale.
• Identify and select reviewers by matching reviewer expertise with the specific science in research grant applications and recommend potential reviewers.
• Perform a thorough review of each application and its relevance to the scientific interests of the Institute.
• Ensure high-quality written reviews are obtained.
• Perform administrative review of research grant applications.
• Manage the scientific peer review of grant and cooperative agreement applications and contract proposals assigned for primary merit review.
• Serve as an internal authoritative source of information on application receipt, referral, and grants management policies and procedures.
• Identify specific areas of expertise for peer review panels, search databases and resources, and prepare lists of potential reviewers.
• Make initial determinations regarding appropriate assignment of grants and resolve conflicts in assignments.
• Prepare preliminary drafts of summary statements and synthesize reviewer comments into final documents.
• Provide critical review of literature and evaluate research concepts, proposals, protocols, and reports.
• Validate and enter information into databases.
• Enter reviewer data into the Committee Management system to prepare peer review rosters.
• Assign applications to reviewers and determine appropriate meeting type (face-to-face, teleconference, Internet-Assisted meeting, etc.).
• Identify involved persons who must be on a conflict-of-interest list and address deficiencies prior to review.
• Assess reviewers against applications for potential conflicts of interest and consult with program staff to ascertain conflicts.
• Examine key personnel, institutional affiliations, and letters of support to determine potential conflicts of interest.
• Attend peer review meetings to take notes and capture results of committee deliberations.
• Obtain, evaluate, and coordinate written critiques from expert reviewers and evaluate incoming reviews for completeness and accuracy.
• Compile and edit summary statements and technical evaluation reports to produce high-quality documents.
• Analyze scientific content of grant applications and apply scientific knowledge related to the mission and NIH peer review process.
• Evaluate scientific aspects of concepts, proposals, protocols, and reports for research.
• Mentor and train staff on scientific peer review processes and procedures.
• Assess organizational needs and develop training programs to improve accuracy and performance of peer review processes.
• Develop training materials, job aids, and instructions for peer reviewers.
• Mentor and coach peer reviewers in the performance of reviews.

Additional Qualifications

No certification needed. Fields of study include General Medical and Health Services, General Social Sciences, Miscellaneous Psychology, Physical Sciences, General Engineering, and Miscellaneous Biology. Software: IAR Internet Assisted Review, Peer Review eRA, CMM (Committee Management Module), QVR Query View Report. Skills: peer review process for grants, literature and database searches, grants and contract mechanisms, administrative summaries, subject matter expert.