CSP Review Process and Contract Documents

Review Process

Proposals will go through a three-step review process. First, they are evaluated for technical feasibility (based on the required letter of intent) by JGI scientific staff. Second, proposals are considered by the Proposal Study Panel (PSP). JGI annually configures two peer review committees, one for large and small eukaryotic proposals and a second for prokaryotic and metagenome proposals. Peer review is conducted during an NIH-style face-to-face meeting of reviewers over two days in April. Each proposal is reviewed by two or three reviewers who each prepare comments on the proposal’s strengths and weaknesses, keyed to the review criteria (listed below). All reviewers not in conflict with a proposal score it and the mean score is used to rank proposals. Reviewers are reminded to focus on judging individual proposals against others being reviewed rather than guessing at where the threshold for approval might be. After review, the PSP recommends project priorities to the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC). Finally, proposals are reviewed by the SAC, which approves them for sequencing based on the rank order established by the PSP and the sequencing capacity available. The project coordinator managing each project then begins a consultative process with the proposer that culminates in the creation of a Statement of Work.

Applicants with concerns about the suitability of their projects for this program are urged to contact the CSP prior to writing a proposal.

Scoring Criteria

Proposals will be judged on the following scoring criteria:

Scientific merit. An important goal of this program is to direct JGI's sequencing and informatics capacity to scientific problems of great importance and of high impact on science and society. Scientific merit will be one of the most important criteria for scoring proposals, and scoring will include an evaluation of the importance of the scientific questions to be addressed and the likelihood that genomic sequencing efforts will answer them. For microbes this should include location in the phylogenetic tree.
Relevance to DOE mission. Relevance to the DOE missions of carbon cycling, biogeochemistry, or alternative energy sources will be considered during the review of all proposals. Projects of strictly biomedical relevance are better suited for other sequencing programs, such as those funded by the National Institutes of Health. Because of the large commitment of resources required for shotgun sequencing of genomes larger than 250 Mb, applications for large genomes must establish clear relevance of the project to the DOE mission.
Demonstrated capability of the applicant(s) and/or the scientific community to use the genome sequence. Large-scale sequencing projects should be followed up in a timely fashion with analyses or further studies that answer important scientific questions. Proposals will be evaluated on whether scientists with expertise and the necessary skills will be ready to perform follow-up research and publications. The size and productivity of the user community will also be considered.
Amount of DOE JGI resources to be allocated. Weight will be given to the effort required for each project in order to optimize the JGI's overall contribution to scientific discovery.
Technical feasibility. Sequencing projects vary in difficulty. Proposed projects will be evaluated for such factors as G+C content, polymorphism level, and repeat structure, as well as resources to overcome difficulties and improve the product, such as having physical and/or genetic maps, inbred strains, fingerprinted BAC libraries, cDNA libraries, etc.