About this event
On Thursday December 19th, 2024, from 1pm - 2pm ET, the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS) held their monthly IOS Virtual Office Hour. This month’s Virtual Office Hour focused on interpreting panel summaries, reviews, and program officer comments.
General information covered:
- Read the Program Officer comments (PO comments), panel summary, and individual reviews.
- Identify comments / weaknesses that arise in multiple reviews.
- When revamping your proposal, think about your audience! Panelists reviewing your proposal will be more “generalists” in your field so you need to make your proposal accessible to them.
- Always contact your Program Officer
The following questions were some of those asked by the audience:
Q: What is the difference between ad hoc reviewers and panelists?
Proposals can be reviewed in many ways, at the discretion of the managing Program Officer. Three common review practices are: (1) ad hoc reviews only, (2) ad hoc reviews plus panelist reviews, or (3) panelist reviews only. When a proposal is reviewed by ad hoc reviewers, the Program Officer has identified experts in the field whose impression of the strengths and weaknesses in your proposal would be valuable to making decisions on your proposal. Meanwhile, panelist reviewers are generalists in the field who might not have expertise in your specific field/system. Many times, an ad hoc reviewer might have been taken from the list you provided of “Suggested Reviewers” which is why we always encourage PIs to submit this optional Single Copy Document when submitting their proposal. If you aren’t aware of this option to suggest reviewers for your proposal, please see this blog post HERE.
Q: Does NSF allow proposals to be resubmitted?
The PAPPG describes the requirements about submitting a previously declined proposal back to NSF. It is important to note that all proposals, even revised proposals, are treated as new proposals and go through the standard NSF review process. In short, a previously declined proposal can be sent back to NSF but must have undergone substantial revisions. You, as the PI, should make sure to take the time to digest the reviews and revise/restructure the declined proposal before submitting the proposal back to NSF. A submitted proposal which is too similar to that which has been reviewed previously, can be returned without review.
Q: Any tips on how to incorporate the reviewer comments when the proposal is already at the 15-page limit? How can we ensure we’re not cutting any of the important information?
Use the previous reviews and panel summary as data to revamp your plans and/or how you present those plans. Many times, you can rewrite the text to incorporate reviewer comments. Identify places where the proposal appeared to be confusing to reviewers and the reviewers missed the point of what you were trying to say. Take the time to make that part clearer. Ultimately remember that you are the one leading this proposal, and it is up to you to decide what feedback makes sense to incorporate to improve the proposal work. You do not need to incorporate all reviewers’ comments and talking to a Program Officer after you review the reviews can help you to identify what were really the panel’s concerns and what was just “noise.”
Upcoming IOS Virtual Office Hours:
Our next VOH will be January 16, 2025, and the topic will be announced the beginning of January along with the registration link to be utilized throughout 2025.