National Institutes of Health Peer Review: Challenges and Avenues for Reform

The National Institute of Health (NIH), through its extramural grant program, is the primary public funder of health-related research in the United States. Peer review at NIH is organized around the twin principles of investigator initiation and rigorous peer review, and this combination has long be...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Innovation policy and the economy 2013-01, Vol.13 (1), p.1-22
Main Authors: Azoulay, Pierre, Graff Zivin, Joshua S., Manso, Gustavo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological sciences
Biomedical research
Ecosystems
Funding
Grants
Medical research
Peer review
Research grants
Research methods
Workforce
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Summary:The National Institute of Health (NIH), through its extramural grant program, is the primary public funder of health-related research in the United States. Peer review at NIH is organized around the twin principles of investigator initiation and rigorous peer review, and this combination has long been a model that science funding agencies throughout the world seek to emulate. However, lean budgets and the rapidly changing ecosystem within which scientific inquiry takes place have led many to ask whether the peer-review practices inherited from the immediate postwar era are still well suited to 21st-century realities. In this essay, we examine two salient issues: (1) the aging of the scientist population supported by NIH and (2) the innovativeness of the research supported by the institutes. We identify potential avenues for reform as well as a means for implementing and evaluating them.
ISSN:1531-3468
1537-2618
DOI:10.1086/668237