PSA on Competitive, Not Discussed NIH proposal outcomes

As you know, Dear Reader, the current and following rounds of NIH study section meetings have adopted temporary* new triage/streamlining rules.

Previously, approximately half of proposals are Not Discussed at the meeting, based on the average of preliminary overall impact scores from the assigned reviewers.

This has now been extended such that approximately 70% will Not be Discussed.

Along with this change, NIH has instituted a new “Not Discussed, but Competitive” designation for the ~middle third, ie the top half of the ND.

The first set of scores are being returned to PIs now and I’ve heard some chatter that all of the ND proposals are first marked in eRA Commons as ND. The “Competitive” designation has been showing up a day to many days later.

This has led to some folks asking if I know what is going on.

From what I can tell, the SRO dashboard or whatever still only allows them to enter ND. The SRO then has to send their list of “Competitive” NDs to some sort of eRA commons person who can make the adjustments.

So calm down, everyone, there is not some sort of post-meeting re-juggling of the ND list.

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*I remain skeptical that this will be temporary. Cutting meetings down to one day will be seen as a win. Alternately, getting through a larger set of apps assigned to one section will permit the reduction in total number of sections will be seen as a win. And the “competitive” ND is supposed to allow greater Program flexibility to pick up grants. This dovetails with the recent diktat about strict-payline ICs no longer doinn in that.