Key Dates

Related Announcements

• April 15, 2026 – Continuation of Modifications to Peer Review Practices. See Notice NOT-OD-26-069.
• November 24, 2025 – Updated Guidance on Reopening of NIH Extramural Activities Following the October 1, 2025 – Lapse in Appropriations. See Notice NOT-OD-26-012.
• October 1, 2025 – Information for the NIH Extramural Community During the Lapse of Federal Government Funding. See Notice NOT-OD-26-004. 

Issued by

NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH (NIH)

Purpose

This notice is to provide NIH's extramural community with information on the continuation of select peer review practices implemented following a lapse of appropriations in 2025.

To address the large volume of peer review meetings that were missed during the lapse in appropriations, modifications were made to peer review practices for applications submitted for the January, May, and October 2026 Advisory Councils. NIH finds it necessary to continue modified peer review practices to effectively review an unprecedented number of grant applications. 

Prior to receipt deadlines for small business grant mechanisms, NIH has more than 35,000 grant applications under review for the January 2027 Advisory Council. Application numbers are expected to substantially exceed the record of 33,640 applications reviewed for the May 2026 Advisory Council. 

To enable NIH to continue high quality and timely peer review of NIH grant applications, the following modifications will remain in place for the January 2027 Advisory Council:

• The percent of applications discussed in most meetings will be reduced to 30-35%, instead of the usual ~50%.
• Applications voted by the committee to be in the middle third will be designated as "competitive but not discussed" and applications in the lowest third will be designated as "not competitive and not discussed".  Applications in the middle third will be considered for funding, along with the discussed applications.
• Summary statements will be simplified. Narrative paragraphs summarizing committee discussion will not be used. Instead, summaries will have a sentence describing the degree of consensus in the committee vote, plus bullets listing the main score driving points.  Summaries for all applications will contain the written critiques from the 3 assigned reviewers, as is currently the case. Summaries for applications that are discussed will have the overall impact score.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

NIH Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration
[email protected]