The process encompasses three primary phases. Phase one involves the advertisement and solicitation. Grantors receive numerous proposals from independent researchers, research organizations and other entities throughout the United States in response to solicitations for grant funding. The second phase occurs when the Grantor forms a panel of reviewers to evaluate, provide written comments, discuss and score each proposal.
Panelists are generally senior scientists, professors and subject matter experts nationwide.
The panel evaluations result in the final award and funding for a limited number of proposals. The final phase involves oversight of spending, tracking and reporting. Prior to the development of Q-Review, each panelist received hard copies of the proposals for review. The panelists then submitted their written comments and scores to the Grantor who, in turn, entered the data into a custom built system. Because of the technical terminology, numerous errors were often introduced at this stage.