The NCI maintains a two-tiered (two-stage) peer review process for evaluating these research grant applications for funding: scientific and technical merit are evaluated in the first stage, then programmatic relevance is evaluated in the second stage. CARRA members participate in the first tier of peer review - for clinical and translational research applications - by including the patient perspective in the assessment of scientific and technical merit.

The CARRA program provides peer review training to members interested in participating in peer review panels, and makes its training workshop available as a model for others to adapt.

CARRA staff is also involved throughout the year in leading the Trans-NIH Dialogue on Public Members in Peer Review, one project in CARRA's collaboration with other NIH Institutes and Centers. As part of that collaboration, the CARRA program collaborated in the development of a document titled "Public Members in Peer Review: Basic Premises."

The CARRA program also fills CARRA requests from other Institutes and Centers (ICs) for the participation of qualified, trained CARRA members in the peer review of research proposals related to cancer - on either an ongoing basis, or as a pilot before recruiting and training their own advocate pool of reviewers.

Detailed information is available about peer review and the grants process.