Endocrine Insider
October 16, 2008 

As part of its efforts to improve the peer-review system, the National Institutes of Health has announced a new policy of allowing only one amended application for each grant submitted beginning January 25, 2009.  If the amended application is not funded, the grant must be significantly revised and submitted as a new proposal to be considered for funding.  Historically, NIH has allowed up to two amended applications for each non-funded original or renewal grant application.  The agency has recently seen a decrease in the percentage of new applications funded and has attributed the decrease to a relative increase in the funding of resubmissions.  By disallowing second resubmissions, the agency hopes to tip the scales back to funding more first-submission grants.  The theory is that this will allow the funding of meritorious science earlier and will decrease the administrative burden on both applicants and reviewers.

The change in resubmission policy is only one of many changes NIH will be making to its peer-review system in the coming months. 

The new resubmission policy may be read in full here:  http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-09-003.html

More information about changes in peer review at NIH is available at the Enhancing Peer Review Website:  http://enhancing-peer-review.nih.gov