Mock Review of Grants (MoRe) Program

16 weeks prior to NIH deadline

The MoRe program will send notification to all departments and institutes that the next cycle of internal grant reviews will occur in four weeks.

14 weeks prior to NIH deadline

The MoRe program will send a reminder email to departments and institutes.

12 weeks prior to NIH deadline

The program will ask PIs to declare their intent to go through the MoRe process.

PIs who wish to participate will be asked to submit the following:

• One-page NIH specific aims
• Applicant biosketch
• Summary statement from previous NIH review (if available)

11 weeks prior to NIH deadline

The MoRe program will identify the content experts who will serve as the primary and secondary reviewers for each application. They will review the assigned application prior to the next stage.

10 weeks prior to NIH deadline

During a working session, applicants and primary reviewers will work through the review process as follows. Mentors’ participation is mandatory; participation of key co-investigators is desirable.

• Primary reviewer (5 minutes): Based on the scientific aims and biosketch submitted, primary reviewer will summarize the general objective and scientific premise of the study in a few sentences. They will give their impression of the significance, investigator, innovation and approach in terms of strengths and weaknesses, and share their predicted overall impact score if the project were to evolve well.
• Secondary/tertiary/written reviewers (10 minutes): Next, other reviewers will provide additional comments and suggestions.
• Discussion (10 minutes): This open-forum discussion will help to identify potential pitfalls in the research, improve scientific inquiry and refine specific aims and hypotheses. During this time, the PI can clarify any questions from the reviewers, and may use slides to present additional information or key pilot data.
• Summary (5 minutes): The primary reviewer will summarize the discussion and recommendation.

Following the review, the investigator may be advised to revise or reconfigure based on concerns regarding scientific premise and/or logical design, low potential impact, interdependent aims, low feasibility or over-ambitious goals.

Applicants can then decide to continue to the next stage or delay submission. Note that the decision to submit or wait is solely that of the principal investigators, hopefully in consultation with mentors. The MoRe process is strictly advisory.

Eight weeks prior to NIH deadline

• Applicant will send revised scientific aims to MoRe reviewers for further feedback.
• Applicants can decide to continue to next stage or delay submission based on the feedback received.
• If going forward, the PI and reviewers will identify the reviewer(s) for the next stage.

Note that the decision to submit or wait is solely that of the principal investigators, hopefully in consultation with mentors. The MoRe process is strictly advisory.