Ponderings on peer review: Part 3. Grant critiques

In Part 1 of this Perspective, I discussed basic principles of scientific peer review. In Part 2, I focused specifically on the peer review of manuscripts. Here in Part 3, I complete the Perspective by sharing my thoughts on peer review of grant applications. I begin by emphasizing the goals of grant peer review and then describe the two-stage organizational structure involved. The objective of stage 1 of the process is to establish the scientific merit of the grant proposal. For that phase, I discuss grant review panels, reviewer qualifications and responsibilities, how reviewers are identified and selected, prereview meeting activities, activities during the review panel meeting, grant review criteria and scoring scales, and postmeeting activities. I also note two mechanisms that provide "prepeer review" advice and recommendations for grant applications under development. I then describe the events associated with stage 2 of the peer review process in which grant funding agencies consider application merit scores (from stage 1) along with other factors including their (the funding agency's) research mission, priority areas of investigation, and available funds. Tips for early career reviewers are discussed next and include questions to ask before accepting a review assignment, the importance of following reviewer guidelines, considerations when working through applications, issues involved in writing the critique, scoring the application, and how to approach evaluating resubmitted grant applications. Finally, I identify options for gaining skills and experience in peer review of grant proposals.