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NIH Early Career Reviewer Program Provides Valuable Inside Perspective on Peer Review
NIH has a long-standing commitment of supporting early career scientists to promote growth and stability of the future biomedical workforce. The NIH Director has underscored this commitment by prioritizing training for future scientists. In addition, the NIH Unified Funding Strategy recognizes the critical importance of supporting scientists in the early stages of their careers.
The NIH Center for Scientific Review (CSR) Early Career Reviewer (ECR) Program aligns with NIH efforts to enhance support for early career scientists. The program gives eligible early career scientists the opportunity to serve on NIH peer review panels before earning their first R01 grant or equivalent award. Serving on NIH review panels provides valuable insight and first-hand experience with peer review, which may help ECRs to write stronger grant applications and navigate the NIH funding process more effectively as they progress in their careers.
As NIH works to support promising science, it is essential to maintain a strong pipeline of researchers to serve on NIH peer review panels. The ECR Program helps broaden the pool of trained reviewers and brings new voices and perspectives into the peer review process. This ensures review panels benefit from diverse scientific experiences and viewpoints of researchers at different career levels. Since 2020, 7,733 individuals have participated in the ECR Program. Of those, 323 have gone on to serve as standing members.
It is important to note that ECRs must have an active, independent research program and have demonstrated expertise in topic areas with the NIH portfolio.
Requirements for ECRs
Employment
- At least one year of experience as a full-time faculty member or a researcher in a similar role.
- The program focuses on early career scientists with a doctorate (e.g., Ph.D., M.D., D.O. or equivalent degree). Applicants must be either an assistant professor or in an equivalent role. Associate professors are eligible if they have NIH early stage investigator (ESI) status.
Research
- Applicants must show evidence of an active, independent research program, such as publications, presentations, institutional research support, patents, or supervision of student projects.
- At least one senior-authored (first, last, or corresponding author) research publication in a peer-reviewed journal in the past two years, plus at least one additional senior-authored research publication since earning a doctorate.
Grant and Review History
- No previous service on an NIH study section in any capacity, aside from as a mail reviewer.
- Has not successfully competed for an R01 or R01-equivalent grant in the role of program director/principal investigator (PD/PI).
- Must have submitted a grant application to NIH, in the role of PI/PD, and received the associated summary statement.
Once enrolled in the program, ECRs are added to a database that scientific review officers (SROs) use to identify reviewers. ECRs are encouraged to contact SROs who lead study sections in their scientific field to increase their chances of reviewing. SROs are listed on the CSR study section webpages. They welcome messages from ECRs.
As interest in the ECR Program exceeds the number of available spots, individuals may serve as an ECR only once.
Interested in being an ECR? Learn more and enroll on the CSR ECR Program webpage and hear perspectives from some anonymous former participants below (click on the title to expand).
“Overall, it was a very positive and valuable experience. It provided me with a much clearer, real-world understanding of what review committees are actually looking for and how they evaluate strengths and weaknesses. The meeting was a great learning opportunity and helped me think more strategically about how to frame applications.”
“Anybody who is junior faculty has got to sign up for this because it’s an eye-opening experience. I thought it was incredibly beneficial and a great way to ease your way into the peer review process at NIH.”
“Writing a strong proposal with a strong written impact, significance, and innovation is extremely important for assistant professors, for [early career] investigators. I believe this program really helped me understand how to strike balance between details, significance and other parts of the proposal and how to present my ideas.”
Questions: [email protected].