Jumpstart Your Research Career with CSR’s Early Career Reviewer Program Video Script--Final National Institutes of Health Center for Scientific Review U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Images and Text appear on the screen in sequence: . The NIH logo and the words Center for Scientific Review . Jumpstart Your Research Career . With CSR’s Early Career Reviewer Program Karyl Swartz: If you are an emerging biomedical or behavioral researcher, consider applying for our Early Career Reviewer Program. I’m Karyl Swartz, the director of the program. Text appears on the screen: Voice of Karyl Swartz, Director, Early Career Reviewer Program, NIH Center for Scientific Review. Karyl Swartz: The Center for Scientific Review at the National Institutes of Health developed this program to help you jump-start your career by giving you some experience reviewing grant applications. Early Career Reviewers or ECRs get an insider’s view of the NIH grant application review process. They develop skills needed to be expert reviewers. They network with distinguished scientists and they enrich the pool of future NIH reviewers. The feedback from our ECRs has been impressive. But don’t take my word for it. Listen to what they have to say. Eleanor Seaton: I would say it was an awesome experience. . . . In terms of thinking about grant proposals, preparing grant proposals and how they are reviewed, and also meeting some of the key people –some of the key movers and shakers in the field. Text appears on the screen: Voice of Eleanor Seaton, Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Craig Nunemaker: Anybody’s who is junior faculty has got to sign-up for this thing. Because it’s an eye-opening experience. I thought it was incredibly beneficial and a great way to sort of ease your way into the peer review process at the NIH. The following text appears on the screen: Voice of Craig Nunemaker, Assistant Professor of Medicine & Pharmacology, University of Virginia. A question appears on the screen: How hard was it to review the applications? Judith Altarejos: I think it’s natural to feel nervous about reviewing grant applications because it is such an important job. But I do feel that I had sufficient training from my previous experiences, as well as my current position, to actually review the grant applications. And I was assigned grant applications that were within my area of expertise that I felt very comfortable reviewing. After you get the first one done, you feel kind of like “yes I am definitely qualified to do this.” The following text appears on the screen: Voice of Judith Altarejos, Assistant Professor, Metabolic Signaling and Disease Program, Sanford/Burnham Medical Research Institute. A question appears on the screen: What was the review meeting like? Ehsan Jabbarzadeh: The spirit of the meeting was very positive. And that was a surprise. Because, you might think that people would argue about proposals. But it was very positive. There were discussions among the panelists, but the whole concern of the panel is to is to identify good science and also provide constructive feedback. Daniel Enquobahrie: Participating in this program really helped me appreciate the difficult task reviewers have in terms of making sure that good are decisions are made that really promote the science . . . They have open minds and try to get as much information as possible about each of the applications they review and make sure they understand what investigators have in mind when they apply for funding. Text appears on the screen: Daniel Enquobahrie, Assistant Professor, Epidemiology, University of Washington. Eleanor Seaton: The thing that impressed me the most was the consistency I heard in terms of the reviews. Despite the fact that the reviewers had diverse backgrounds, expertise, and even disciplines there seems to be a great amount of consistency in how grants were being reviewed and discussed. I just think it confirms the objective nature of the scientific process that we're all striving to achieve. A question appears on the screen: What did you learn about peer review? Ehsan Jabbarzadeh: In this climate of funding writing a strong proposal with a strong written impact, significance, and innovation is extremely important for assistant professors -- for young investigators like myself. And I believe this Program really helped me understand how to strike a balance between details, significance and other parts of the proposal and how to present my ideas. The following text appears on the screen: Voice of Ehsan Jabbarzadeh, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of South Carolina. Craig Nunemaker: You really need to be able to communicate why what you're doing is important and why it should, therefore, be of utmost priority to the folks in that room. You know these are people that are coming from very different backgrounds, and you really need be able to convince, certainly, the people who have reviewed your grant directly—but then really everybody else in the room --that this is something that’s worth putting money into. And so to me, more than anything it was simply: sell what you're doing and explain why it’s important. A question appears on the screen: How do you think being an ECR will help you? Eleanor Seaton: The best thing about being in an Early Career Reviewer was hearing the conversation around how grants are reviewed in terms of criteria for the investigator or in the investigator team, significance, innovation. All of that was really good for me because I never achieved an NIH funded grant before. So I think the best part is that it will help me with future grants because now I have a good idea of what people are looking for. Judith Altarejos: I think having the opportunity to actually experience the review process will help my career because it will help me become a more effective grant writer. I understand, now, what our target audience (which is the grant reviewers) what they’re looking for and what the scoring criteria are and how grantsmanship can really be important for them to get your message. And so I think this program will hopefully help me succeed at getting a grant. Craig Nunemaker: I had an opportunity to meet a whole ‘lot of different folks from different backgrounds, from different areas, different Institutions. Being able to listen to grants being presented from the perspective of the reviewers in all these different fields was really valuable in terms of getting an idea of how to properly formulate your ideas so that they can be communicated to folks who don't necessarily know your branch of research particularly well. A question appears on the screen: Who should apply and how do you apply? Images of Early Career Reviewers working at review meetings follow. Narrator: We are looking for researchers who have a faculty position, or equivalent, who have an active, independent research program, who are published in peer-reviewed research journals and have not reviewed for CSR in a face-to-face meeting. You don’t necessarily need to have NIH or equivalent funding. Visit our Web site at www.csr.nih.gov and apply online. We want to hear from you and help jump-start your research career. An image of the main administrative building with an open door is displayed on the screen as the audio continues. Eleanor Seaton: I think it's invaluable for junior scholars like myself. I think it's invaluable for minority, ethnic junior scholars … again people who are trying to make their way into the pipeline. . . . . So I hope more individuals like myself can take advantage of it. Judith Altarejos: In this day and age you really have to take your career in your own hands. Logos for the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services appear on the screen.