Early Career Reviewer (ECR) Program
The program aims to help early career scientists become more competitive as grant applicants through first-hand experience with peer review and to enrich and diversify CSR’s pool of trained reviewers.
Benefits of ECR
- Work side-by-side with some of the most accomplished researchers in your field to help NIH identify the most promising grant applications
- Learn how reviewers determine overall impact scores
- Improve your own grant writing skills by getting an insider’s view of how grant applications are evaluated
- Serve the scientific community by participating in NIH peer review
- Develop research-evaluation and critique-writing skills
Learn more – view a webinar with recent ECRs
ECR Qualifications
Employment
You have at least 1 year of experience as a fulltime faculty member or researcher in a similar role. Post-doctoral fellows are not eligible.
Because the program is focused on early career scientists with a doctorate, you must be:
- an Assistant Professor or in an equivalent role, or
- an Associate Professor with NIH Early Stage Investigator (ESI) status.
Learn more about ESI status.
Research
You show evidence of an active, independent research program. Examples include publications, presentations, institutional research support, patents, acting as supervisor of student projects.
You have at least 1 senior-authored research publication in a peer-reviewed journal in the last 2 years plus at least 1 additional senior-authored research publication since receiving a doctorate.
- In press publications are considered; preprints are not.
- We consider “senior author” as single author, corresponding author, or first or last author.
- There is no requirement that the recent publication cover work performed at the current institution.
Grant & Review History
You have not served on an NIH study section in any capacity aside from as a mail reviewer. (Mail reviews do not include participation in the meeting.)
You have not held an R01 or R01-equivalent (R35, R37, RF1, R23, R29, DP1, DP2, DP5, U01, RL1) grant in the PD/PI role
You must have submitted a grant proposal, in the PI/PD role, to the NIH and received the associated summary statement.
Enroll in the ECR Program
How it Works
The demand to serve as an ECR far exceeds what we can meet. You may serve as an ECR only once.
After you are accepted in the program, to increase your chances of reviewing, we encourage you to directly contact the SROs who run study sections in your field. The SROs are listed on the study section pages. They welcome your email!
Acceptance into the program means that your name is added to a database that Scientific Review Officers (SRO) use to find eligible reviewers in particular areas of science.
You Will Need
- Full and up-to-date CV (Word or PDF format). Do not submit an NIH biosketch.
- List of terms that describe your areas of scientific expertise. These should be key words or phrases that describe your scientific and technical skills and interests.
- NIH Commons ID (case sensitive).
- Select up to 4 CSR study sections that match your expertise. Adding this information increases the likelihood that you will be asked to review.
- If you have questions, contact us at CSRearlyCareerReviewer@mail.nih.gov.
Use the ECR Application and Vetting System (EAVS) to enroll and update your information.
You must confirm your information yearly or it will be removed from the database.
Once accepted, you will remain in the program until you no longer meet the criteria above.
The system will email you on your anniversary date to update or confirm your qualifications.
