Key Dates

Related Announcements

• December 30, 2021 - Maintaining Security and Confidentiality in NIH Peer Review: Rules, Responsibilities and Possible Consequences. See NOT-OD-22-044.

Issued by

NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH (NIH)

Purpose

Background

The NIH is committed to maintaining integrity and fairness in the peer review process. Towards this effort, the NIH’s Center for Scientific Review (CSR) has developed two reviewer training modules.

1. The Review Integrity module raises awareness of actions that breach review integrity and provides tools to prevent and report them.
2. The Bias Awareness and Mitigation module raises awareness of potential biases in the peer review process and provides strategies to mitigate them.

Both trainings have been successfully implemented by CSR for multiple review cycles, with many thousands of reviewers having taken the trainings prior to serving on review panels.

Implementation

This notice informs the extramural community that, effective for the May 2024 Council round (peer review meetings in early 2024) and beyond, completion of the Review Integrity and Bias Awareness and Mitigation modules will be required by all reviewers prior to participating in NIH review meetings governed by the Federal Advisory Committee Act (which represents >90% of NIH’s yearly review meetings). Each training will take approximately 30 minutes and will need to be completed once every 3 years.

Reviewers who have not completed the training within 3 years will not be able to access their assigned applications.

Resources

• Reviewer Integrity and Bias Awareness Training FAQs

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

NIH Review Policy Officer
ReviewPolicyOfficer@mail.nih.gov