What Happens to Your Grant Application

A Primer for New Applicants

The Center for Scientific Review (CSR) receives all NIH 

and some other Public Health Service grant applications. 

Most investigator-initiated applications for NIH funds are 

referred to CSR review groups.

Your application is assigned to a review group and an NIH Institute or Center

One or more CSR Referral Officers examine your application and determine the most appropriate Integrated 

Review Group (IRG) to assess its scientific and technical merit. Your application is then assigned to one of 

the IRG’s study sections. A study section typically includes 20 or more scientists from the community of 

productive researchers. Your application also will be assigned to the NIH Institute or Center (IC) best suited 

to fund your application should it have sufficient merit. (More than one IC may be assigned if appropriate.)

Referral Officers follow established guidelines that define the 

review boundaries of each study section. These boundaries 

frequently overlap, and more than one study section may have 

the expertise to review your application. You may request in a 

cover letter with your application that it be assigned to a 

particular study section or IC. The CSR referral office seriously 

considers such requests.

The combined expertise of the scientists in a study section is 

intended to span the breadth and diversity of the science it 

covers. CSR may recruit temporary reviewers or secure mail 

reviews from outside consultants.

Checking the status of your application 

As soon as your application is received and assigned to a study section, information is posted to your online 

NIH Commons account. Information on the Commons and how to register is available at 

https://commons.era.nih.gov/commons. You may question either your study section or IC assignment by 

contacting the Scientific Review Officer (SRO) named in your notification or the CSR referral office (301-

435-0715). It usually takes weeks to refer the thousands of applications submitted each round. If information 

is not posted in your Commons account within 2 weeks of the submission date, contact the referral office.

Reviewers are identified

Your SRO will analyze the content of your application, check 

for completeness and compliance with policies, and decide 

which reviewers can best evaluate it. Reviewers have access 

to your application approximately 6 weeks before their 

meeting. Each application is assigned to three or more 

reviewers, and at least two of them provide written critiques.

These assigned reviewers lead the discussions at the meeting. 

Make sure your application is complete and correct when you 

submit it because there are significant limits on the kinds of 

post-submission information you may submit. Contact your 

SRO if you have questions about what is possible. 

Some of about thousands of scientists who 

review NIH grant applications at CSR.

One of CSR’s Referral Officers, who help 

assign applications to the right review 

groups and ICs. 
Before the study section meets, reviewers confidentially submit to CSR preliminary critiques. Reviewers also

assign preliminary scores for each review criterion and for the overall impact of the application. The SRO 

then uses the preliminary overall impact scores to order the reviews. Applications in the lower half are not 

typically discussed. This does not mean they are disapproved. Applicants may resubmit a better application 

after considering the critiques they receive. 

The review meeting is convened

Study sections convene for 1 to 2 days. One member serves as 

chair and conducts the meeting with the SRO. Relevant NIH 

program staff is encouraged to attend, but they do not 

participate in the evaluation. Assigned reviewers present their 

evaluations and outside opinions are read. After a general 

discussion, reviewers privately submit priority scores to CSR.

The results are released to you

Within a few days after the meeting, your priority score and percentile ranking are available to you online via 

the NIH Commons. Within a month, your summary statement will be available via your NIH Commons 

account. It will include (1) the written critiques produced by the assigned reviewers, (2) SRO’s summary of 

the study section’s discussion, (3) preliminary scores for each review criterion, (4) study section 

recommendations, and (4) administrative notes of special consideration. For new investigators submitting 

R01 applications, their summary statements are posted within 10 days after the meeting. If your application 

was not discussed, you will receive the reviewer critiques and preliminary scores for each review criterion.

The assigned NIH Institute or Center takes charge

After the review, an IC Program Officer will be your main point of contact. He or she may help interpret your 

review results or answer questions about the further consideration of your application. In a second level of 

peer review, IC Advisory Councils may consider the study section’s recommendations and determine the 

relevance of your proposed research to IC priorities and public health needs.

View the Video!

NIH Peer Review Revealed 

CSR has produced a video of a mock study section 

meeting to provide another inside look at how NIH grant 

applications are reviewed for scientific and technical merit. 

View the video via the Web:

http://www.csr.nih.gov/Video/Video.asp

Learn More About CSR

CSR organizes peer review 

groups that evaluate three 

quarters of the grant applications 

submitted to NIH. CSR also 

receives all NIH and many Public 

Health Service grant applications 

and assigns them to the 

appropriate NIH Institutes and 

Centers and PHS agencies. 

Visit our Web site or call for more 

information: 

http://www.csr.nih.gov

301 435-1115

Grant Info

Get info on funding opportunities, application forms, 

instructions and policies from the NIH Office of Extramural 

Research: http://www.grants.nih.gov. 

National Institutes of Health

http://www.nih.gov

Revised 8/5/2011 NIH Publication No. 07-5174

A typical CSR study section meeting. CSR 

also convenes online meetings when they 

are a way to recruit the best reviewers.