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Mock Review Sessions

The purpose of mock review sessions is to provide a scientific review of grant applications that trainees in the Institute for Clinical Research Education (ICRE) plan to submit for external funding. The first sessions were held in April 2008 and involved the review of applications from two trainees in the Clinical Research Scholars Program (CRSP).

Any trainee can request that a mock review session be organized. The sessions will be open to other trainees and ICRE faculty unless special circumstances apply.

For each review session, two reviewers who are not ICRE faculty (external reviewers) will be identified with the assistance of the trainee and his or her mentors. At least one of the external reviewers will have expertise relevant to the content area of the grant application. In addition, one or two reviewers from the ICRE faculty (internal reviewers) will be identified, and at least one of these reviewers will have expertise in biostatistics or epidemiology. A peer reviewer from an ICRE training program will be selected or will volunteer.

If the grant application is to be submitted to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the reviewers will be provided with review guidelines from the NIH Center for Scientific Review. If the application is to be submitted to another funding agency, the reviewers will be provided with other pertinent guidelines.

All reviewers will be strongly encouraged to provide written comments to the trainee.

The mock review sessions will last about 1 hour. During the session, the reviewers will follow these procedures:

1. The primary external reviewer will give an overall summary of the grant application, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses. The primary reviewer can offer a priority score if he or she feels it is appropriate.
2. The secondary external reviewer will offer additional comments and can also offer a priority score if he or she feels it is appropriate.
3. The internal reviewer or reviewers will provide additional comments.
4. The peer reviewer will provide additional comments.
5. If time allows, the trainee who submitted the grant application will be permitted to ask the reviewers questions to clarify the points that they made during the mock review.

For more information about mock review sessions, please contact Charity G. Moore, PhD, at moorecg@upmc.edu.