Reading the review and resubmitting
A grant decision combines an assessment of the proposal with the funding available. The written critiques and discussion with the programme officer help a team decide whether to revise, resubmit or approach another funder.
The review and its outcomes
A grant proposal goes to a review panel, called a study section at the NIH; all reviewers typically have access, but some read the whole proposal while others scan it, and one reviewer presents it to the group. In various review settings, the score is a total or average of reviewers’ scores, and proposals form a continuum for funding decisions. The possible outcomes include:
- Approval without changes to the project or budget.
- Approval with changes to the project, budget or both.
- Approval without funding: the score was good, but funds ran out while higher-scoring proposals were funded; funding preferences can sometimes decide the outcome.
- Rejection: the score fell below the level required for approval and funding.
In 2014, the NIH eRA Commons account served as each principal investigator’s online inbox, containing investigator-entered demographic details, application-status updates and reviewers’ critiques. The NIH R01 research-project grant had a 14% success rate among all investigators in 2015.
Reading comments and seeking advice
After rejection or approval without funding, applicants should request the written reviewer comments to inform whether to resubmit in the next cycle and what to change. Comments may vary substantially because reviewers are chosen for different areas of expertise or to represent different constituencies, and their knowledge of the proposal’s topic can differ. The programme officer can advise whether resubmission has a reasonable chance, which sections especially need revision and whether problems were omitted from the written comments.
Applicants should avoid responding while angry, attacking reviewers’ motives or blaming the programme officer, who had no vote in the committee’s decision and may help with future applications. Co-investigators should plan the telephone enquiry together, writing a question script, thanking the agency for its review and asking what could improve the proposal or help future applications. The enquiry should establish whether the proposal narrowly missed funding or was judged so poor that the committee would not welcome it again.
Revision, another funder and persistence
After disappointment subsides and the available feedback has been gathered, the team should meet to agree a strategy. If the proposal was not fundamentally poor but fell short, and still fits the funder’s mission, it can be revised using the feedback and resubmitted later. If the idea still appears fundable but resubmission to that agency seems unlikely to succeed, the application can probably be revised for another agency and may then be funded.
The 2018 grantsmanship advice described many proposals, particularly NIH applications, as succeeding only on a second or third submission. Rejection can also occur after major scientific recognition: in 2008, a Nobel laureate reported that his latest NIH application had been rejected and planned to resubmit it that year for what was described as the third and final try for that proposal. His advice treated failure as recurrent when pursuing ambitious ideas, and acceptance of failed ideas as compatible with continuing to try.