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Rita: From my own involvement in our federal grants submission, your comments are entirely correct. The study sections are not the final FINAL word on awards, though--there is an Institute Council that makes the decisions based largely on input/ratings from the study sections and partly on ???????????? One criterion at this level is, I believe, Institute policies, i.e., funding research with implications across a broad area of study. That's where PWP run up against the process, since disease-specific grants are sometimes (NOT ALWAYS) judged to be narrow in terms of implicaations. Carole Cassidy At 03:26 PM 8/5/98 EDT, you wrote: >It is my assumption that NIH is peer reviewed grant funding as is NSF >(National Science Foundation). > >Applications for research grants are sent to the appropriate focus study >group. A study group is composed of scientists with expertise in the specific >area of research. Grants are reviewed by the appropriate members of the study >group.....then defended by those direct reviewers in the review sessions where >the proposals are given a ranking....one cannot be a reviewer for a grant from >one's own institute for research (i.e......if you work at Salk, you cannot >review a proposal from another Salk investigator). Study group members are >not paid for their participation....yet this requires many weeks of dedicated >work each year. > >Grants are funded on the basis of monies available.......for instance if PD >related work was granted $30M for funding.....and 150 grants totaling $942M >were received, only those grants receiving the highest rating by the study >group would receive funds. >That may mean that only 10 proposals were funded (I am grabbing these numbers >out of thin air....but I do know that in some areas of basic research less >than 20% of proposals are funded). It does not mean that each funded >proposal is funded at 100% of requested funds, but likewise....it does no good >to fund only 15% of a specific proposal. > >Research scientists are often very frustrated by the lack of funding, however, >I have never spoken with a research scientist who would trade peer review >evaluations on proposals for any other form of review. > >What I am trying to say in my reply to you is that the title of a proposal is >not a good basis for rebuttal for lack of funding.....the quality of the >proposal is much more value. > >Rita Weeks 53/9 >(My husband is a research scientist) > >