So you survived electronic submission. Your proposal made it to NIH. You saw your beautifully compiled proposal in your NIH eRA Commons account. What happens now?
First, your application will now pass to NIH’s Center for Scientific Review where it will be assigned a unique identification number that looks like this: 1 R43 AI183723 02 A1 S1.
Each entry tells another snippet of information about your application.
-The first number is the application type (e.g., new is Type 1), which tells NIH whether your application is new, a renewal, a noncompeting application, or another type.
-Next is the activity code, the type of grant you’ve applied for, e.g., an R43 Phase I SBIR grant.
-The next two-letter abbreviation is the institute code; NIAID’s code is AI.
-Next is the unique serial number assigned by the Center for Scientific Review.
-Then comes the suffix showing the support year for the grant.
-The final two are codes for a resubmission, supplement, or fellowship institutional allowance.
In eRA Commons, you will see this NIH number associated with your application along with the old Grants.gov tracking number.
Second, your application will be assigned to an Institute and Integrated Review Group
Following NIH referral guidelines, CSR assigns your application to an integrated review group (IRG) and then to a study section for initial peer review.
CSR then assigns an institute or center for funding. It does this based on either your request or NIH referral guidelines.
Within 7-10 days after you apply, you should find your assignments in the eRA Commons.
Log in to your eRA Commons account to check. If you don’t see your assignments within two weeks, call the NIH Referral Office at 301-435-0715.
At first, you might not see the expected study section. Instead, that field may show the umbrella organization, the integrated review group. This item will be updated over the next few days when your application is assigned to the study section that performs the initial peer review.
If you’re not happy with this assignment you can request a change. More info on assignments and any other issues can be found here: https://www.niaid.nih.gov/grants-contracts/assign-review-group
From this point until you receive your reviews, your main point of contact regarding your proposal is your Scientific Review Officer (SRO) at CSR. You should receive your score and Summary Statements sometime around mid-late November depending on when your particular study section meets. Dates of study section meetings can be found on the CSR website. After the meeting, you should proactively check your eRA Commons account for information.
Your score will come first, followed a week or so later by your Summary Statement.
