Introduction to Using the Recruitment Phase
The Scientific Review Officer (SRO) responsible for conducting the review meeting is required to select and assign Reviewers for each application in that meeting. These Reviewers must not have any real or apparent conflicts of interest (COI) with the application they are reviewing. A COI in scientific peer review exists when a Reviewer has an interest in or an association with a person involved with a grant, a cooperative agreement application, or an R&D contract proposal that is likely to cause a bias within the evaluation. If a Reviewer has a conflict of interest with an application that reviewer may not participate in its review.
The NIH Conflict of Interest, Confidentiality, and Non Disclosure Rules can be accessed online at the following location: http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/peer/COI_Information.pdf.
It is the responsibility of the SROs to identify and manage these conflicts of interest. In the past, determining COIs between potential Reviewers and applications was one of the more time-consuming and challenging parts of the meeting preparation process.
For this reason, the Recruitment Phase was created. Recruitment Phase is an optional phase that allows potential Reviewers to view a list of involved personnel for a meeting and to self-identify any Conflicts of Interest before being selected as Reviewers in those meetings. The Involved Personnel List is a list of all persons involved with an application. IMPACII automatically adds key personnel to the list when applications are submitted. The SRO can also enter other personnel, if necessary, based on additional information (e.g., Letters of Support). Recruitment Phase also provides SROs with the ability to easily record the valid COIs.
The Recruitment Phase functionality provides the following:
- Compliance with Peer Review Policy
- Ability for an SRO/ESA to initiate or skip the Recruitment Phase
- Ability for an SRO/ESA to create a list of potential Reviewers from different sources, including external file uploads
- Ability for an SRO to grant the potential Reviewer access to the Recruitment Phase via a new Recruitment Control Center in Peer Review
- Web-based communication of pre-review related materials, including the list of involved personnel for applications in the meeting, viewable by Reviewers after signing a Confidentiality Statement. Whereas a pre-meeting COI form covers specific grant numbers in conflict with a Reviewer, the Confidentiality Statement is a blanket statement promising that no information about any application data for the meeting will be disclosed by the Reviewer.
- Ability for a Reviewer to self-identify conflicts of interest on application level.
- Ability for an SRO to manage the Reviewer-identified conflicts
- Convenience of transferring conflicts to the Peer Review (REV) system from Recruitment Phase after being reviewed by SRO
See the following topics in Peer Review help's Recruitment Phase Guide to get started:
Roles and Responsibilities for Recruitment Phase
SRO Recruitment Phase Workflow
Managing List of Reviewers in Peer Review
Recording Reviewer Identified Conflicts
Create/Update a Meeting Roster
Send Email to Potential Reviewers
