Message from SER President: Impact of NIH Peer Review Process on Epidemiology

From the president of SER:


Dear SER Colleagues:

As many of you know, NIH is about to make important changes to its grant applications peer review system. A blue ribbon committee has been established (http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/jun2007/od-08.htm) by NIH Director Zerhouni to lead this effort. Currently, there are no epidemiologists on this committee and most members are bench scientists. Therefore, it is important that epidemiologists make their views known.

NIH has created a website to receive comments from scientists regarding what changes should be made. The perception is widespread among our membership, and among members of other major epidemiology societies, that grant applications to the NIH from epidemiologists are not being funded for reasons having more to do with the problems in the process of peer review and composition of study sections than with the actual merits of the grant application.

Therefore, the SER executive board would like to encourage you to read the NIH (one page) solicitation for comments and then submit comments/recommendations that might well improve our chances to receive better informed, and more balanced, reviews by NIH study sections. The deadline for submitting your comments/recommendations is September 7, 2007; the URL is http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-07-074.html . There is an online comment form at this site. You may need to copy the above links and paste them into your web browser.

Please act on this at your earliest opportunity.

Sincerely,

Sherman A. James, PhD
SER President