Protect Scientific Peer Review: The Research Community Must Respond to NIH’s Proposal

Protect Scientific Peer Review: The Research Community Must Respond to NIH's Proposal

On August 14, 2026, the National Institutes of Health issued a request for information (RFI) on a consequential proposal that could diminish the influence and transparency of scientific peer review in NIH funding decisions. Scientists, research institutions, professional societies, patient advocates, and other members of the biomedical research community should submit substantive, personalized comments opposing the proposal in its current form by the October 13 deadline.

Under the proposal, NIH peer-review panels would continue to evaluate and score grant applications. NIH would still calculate each discussed application's final overall impact score and, when applicable, its percentile ranking. However, that information would no longer be disclosed to applicants, institutions, NIH program staff, Institute and Center leadership, and the advisory councils responsible for second-level review.

Instead, applications would be placed into three broad categories: "most competitive" for the top 25%, "competitive" for the next 25%, and "not discussed" for the remainder. This is not simply a change in how NIH communicates review results. It would remove transparency and meaningful details from the grant review process while expanding the relative importance of administrative and programmatic discretion.

NIH has always considered programmatic priorities, portfolio balance, emerging scientific opportunities, workforce needs, and available resources. Peer review scores are not perfect, and they should never be treated as mathematically precise or as the sole basis for funding. However, while scoring may not always distinguish between two closely ranked applications, it may still convey a consequential difference between an application near the top of a review group and one near the bottom of the same category.

The proposal therefore creates several serious risks.

First, it would decrease the role of scientific judgment in funding decisions. Although peer reviewers would continue to score applications, the proposal would reduce their collective scientific judgment to a threshold for broad categorization. By withholding the scores that distinguish applications within the "most competitive" category, NIH would prevent advisory councils and Institute leadership from fully considering the review panel's assessment when selecting awards. Peer review would therefore function less as the primary scientific basis for funding decisions and more as an eligibility screen, shifting greater influence to administrative priorities and creating additional levels of approval at a time of significant uncertainty in NIH scientific leadership.

Second, it would weaken transparency and accountability. When scientific assessments and programmatic considerations lead to different conclusions, how and why the final decision was made should be transparent. Removing scores would make it more difficult for applicants, advisory councils, Congress, and the public to determine when funding decisions depart substantially from peer-review judgments.

Third, it would increase the burden on the second-level reviewers. NIH advisory councils cannot exercise their oversight responsibilities as efficiently if they receive less information about the scientific evaluations produced during the first stage of review. While this proposal aims to strengthen second-level peer review, we believe that second-level reviewers are already appropriately thorough in their reading and review and should continue to be provided with all available information.

Fourth, it would deprive applicants of detailed information they need to interpret critiques and decide whether and how to revise and resubmit. Broad categories cannot provide the same guidance as an overall score and percentile, potentially adding uncertainty, delay, and expense to an already demanding application process. The loss of this feedback will not only impact the applicant's success in the review process but also limit the ability to identify potential weaknesses in their proposal and to make substantive improvements that could strengthen the research proposal and advance scientific discovery.

The process that produced the proposal for this substantive change in process is opaque and raises several questions. NIH states only that a working group of NIH leaders was convened in late 2025. The RFI does not identify the working group's members, describe its charter or deliberative process, provide the literature or NIH data it examined, release its analysis, explain how it evaluated alternatives, show how the practices of other agencies are comparable to NIH's distinctive two-stage review system, nor does it outline how the agency intends to evaluate and revisit the new process if implemented. NIH is asking the public and the scientific community to evaluate a major change without the evidence necessary to evaluate the working group's reasoning.

That lack of transparency is particularly concerning because the proposal conflicts with NIH's own commitment that Institutes and Centers should consider peer-review information "in its entirety." NIH should prioritize substantive peer review, which must include transparency of the judgments produced by the full review panel.

For decades, rigorous peer review and investigator-initiated research have been foundations of American leadership in biomedical science. Defending that system does not require claiming that it is flawless. It requires insisting that changes be supported by evidence, developed transparently, and accompanied by safeguards commensurate with their risks.

Silence during this RFI process could be interpreted as acceptance. SfN is asking its members, other scientific organizations, and individuals with a stake in credible, independent scientific research to submit a substantive comment and encourage colleagues to do the same. NIH should strengthen peer review and accountability through transparent deliberation, not by limiting access to the scientific judgments on which public confidence depends.

SfN urges the biomedical research community to use this comment period to ask NIH to withdraw or substantially revise the proposal. Learn more about how to take action via SfN's Action Alert.