With the complete elimination of any real cap on the number of allowable resubmissions to NIH, many of us have wondered how much the workload has increased at CSR and on NIH reviewers in general. In the past two years, outgoing NIH Deputy Director has been evaluating “the level of service that most peer reviewers are willing and able to provide, and how peer review service fits within the scope of reviewers’ other professional responsibilities.”
Among the key results of this evaluation:
- More than 80% of mid-career R01 recipients have served as reviewers at least once in the past five years.
- 88% of respondents who reported having been invited to review in the prior year had served at least once.
- ~51% of respondents reported that peer review of grants should comprise less than 5% of their professional effort, but another 46% reported that peer review of grants should make up 5-10% of their worktime.
- Respondents reported that they considered an assignment load of 6 applications per meeting, and 1 – 2 meetings per year, to be reasonable expectations. The typical load at CSR is more than this, and NIH would be hard pressed to review all the applications the scientific community submits if this preference became the norm.
- ~3,500 qualified reviewers/year have not yet served in the last five years.
An article in the newly released CSR Peer Review Notes describes the information in more detail: http://public.csr.nih.gov/aboutcsr/NewsAndPublications/PeerReviewNotes/Pages/Peer-Review-Notes-Sep-2015Part5.aspx
