Scientific Review Branch

Mission Statement

The mission of the NINDS Scientific Review Branch is to provide unbiased and expert peer review of grant applications and contract proposals and to provide advice and assistance to the NINDS extramural programs.

Description of Services

The NINDS Scientific Review Branch (SRB) is responsible for the review of all NINDS research and development contracts and certain grant applications of particular interest to NINDS, including solicited and unsolicited program project and specialized center grant applications, multicenter clinical studies, conference grants, career development awards, institutional training grants, and other grant mechanisms for which NINDS Institute review is specified in a Program Announcement or Request for Applications.

The responsibilities of SRB include:

• Receiving and assigning applications and contract proposals to review committees,
• Determining the expertise needed to review grant applications and contract proposals,
• Recruiting reviewers with the appropriate expertise for both regular review committees and Special Emphasis Panels,
• Assigning applications and proposals to appropriate reviewers,
• Organizing and supervising in-person and teleconference review committee meetings, including the processing and mailing of review materials,
• Assigning appropriate NIH subjects codes to applications, and entering codes, scores, and critiques into the central NIH database,
• Providing to the Committee Management Office, Grants Management Office and Contracts Management Office information required for compliance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act and the Procurement Integrity Act.

In addition, Scientific Review Officers serve as a resource to extramural staff, reviewers, and applicants by providing advice and assistance regarding review policy issues and the planning of new initiatives and future directions

Branch Personnel