Overview of Review Process for Research Funding,
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) is one of 13 separate institutes and agencies that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Collectively, they comprise the largest biomedical research organization in the world.

NICHD operates within the guidelines for research and funding for research that have been established by NIH. It receives its overall guidance and funding from the annual congressional appropriations to the institute. Further overall guidance and priorities for funding come from a national panel that provides advice to the director of NICHD.

These priorities are then acted on by the staff, which develops the requests for proposals. Once a request for proposals is drafted, it is reviewed by a separate part of the agency and then the grant process is managed by that separate agency. Key to the entire decision-making process is the notion of peer review. For a full outline of the peer review process and the parts of NICHD that are involved in the process, visit the following website: www.nichd.nih.gov/funding/policies/peer_review_nih.cfm.

The separate part of NICHD that manages the grants process is the Division of Scientific Review (DSR). This agency is separate from the program side of the institute, which develops ideas into requests that applicants respond to for funding. The following information comes from the NICHD website and describes how the DSR functions and makes funding decisions on which application will be funded.

Division of Scientific Review (DSR)

Subcommittees of the NICHD Initial Review Group

Meeting Schedules of the NICHD Initial Review Group

The DSR is responsible for a broad range of functions related to the review of grant applications for research and training and contract proposals for research. The Division also provides policy direction and coordination for planning and conducting initial scientific and technical merit reviews of applications for numerous types of grant applications, including program projects, centers, institutional training grants, career development, and conference grants. In addition, the DSR coordinates and conducts the review of grant applications that are received by the NICHD in response to requests for applications, which are published with the aim of fostering work in a research area of particular relevance to the mission of the Institute. The Division also manages the technical evaluation of contract proposals that arrive in response to requests for proposals issued by the Institute.

To review grant applications, the DSR relies on seven subcommittees of the Child Health and Human Development (CHHD) Initial Review Group (IRG) or, where appropriate, a Special Emphasis Panel that is convened for its expertise in a specific area of science. The subcommittees of the CHHD IRG and the scientific areas reviewed within each subcommittee are as follows:

Pediatrics Subcommittee addresses issues such as: neonatology; endocrinology; metabolism; nutrition and growth; pharmacology; epidemiology; pediatric critical care; pediatric infectious disease; and pediatrics (including birth defects).

Developmental Biology Subcommittee addresses issues such as: biological bases of mental retardation and developmental disabilities; molecular genetics; developmental genetics; developmental immunobiology; early embryonic development; teratology; cellular endocrinology; gene expression and therapy; developmental neurobiology; organogenesis; gastrulation; embryonic patterning; embryogenesis; cell biology; and cellular physiology and function.

Biobehavioral and Behavioral Sciences Subcommittee addresses issues such as: biobehavioral bases of mental retardation and developmental disabilities; social development; cognition; language; at-risk development; health and behavior; emotion; basic human behavior; socioeconomic context; culture; child abuse and neglect; neuropsychology; memory; attention; service delivery; attitudes; basic animal behavior; and policies related to these topics.

Population Sciences Subcommittee addresses issues such as: marriage and family; mortality and morbidity; immigration; internal migration; population distribution; economic demography and labor force; ethnography; population and environment; and social, economic, and demographic aspects of fertility and contraception, sexual behavior, policy, child well-being, transition to adulthood, child abuse and neglect, disability, AIDS/HIV/STDs, race and ethnicity, health, neighborhoods, geographic information systems, and culture.

Obstetrics and Maternal-Fetal Biology Subcommittee addresses issues such as: pregnancy; labor; preeclampsia; lactation; placental function; reproductive immunology; and HIV infection.

Reproduction, Andrology, and Gynecology Subcommittee addresses issues such as: reproductive biology; reproductive endocrinology; reproductive neuroendocrinology; reproductive genetics; andrology; gynecology; contraception; infertility; pelvic floor disorders; gametogenesis; fertilization; implantation; preimplantation embryo development; germ cell biology; embryonic stem cell biology; animal cloning; and sex determination.

Function, Integration, and Rehabilitation Sciences Subcommittee addresses issues such as: clinical aspects of plasticity; recovery and adaptation; limb and joint mechanics; coordination, balance, and mobility; functional impairment and disability; rehabilitative engineering; orthotics, prosthetics, and assistive devices; therapeutic exercise; secondary consequences of disabilities; behavioral and psychosocial adjustment to disease, injury, and chronic disability; functional assessments, and outcomes, participation, and societal barriers for individuals with disabilities.

In addition to managing the subcommittees, Scientific Review Administrators also recruit extramural scientists to serve as peer reviewers and maintain oversight of all aspects of the peer review process. Further, Special Emphasis Panels, which are convened as Technical Evaluation Groups, also evaluate contract proposals.

Another component of the DSR is the NICHD Committee Management Service Center, which is responsible for assuring that the composition and conduct of committees in its charge are consonant with all regulations relevant to Federal Advisory Committees. In addition to handling all NICHD advisory committees, the NICHD Committee Management Service Center maintains responsibility for managing a number of other committees that act on behalf of several Institutes and Centers, such as the Office of the NIH Director's Committee of Public Representatives and the Office of AIDS Research Advisory Council. The NICHD Committee Management Service Center also provides oversight for the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy, appointed by the President.

Contact address

Robert H. Stretch, Ph.D., Director
Phone (301) 496-1485
Fax (301) 402-4104
Director, Division of Scientific Review
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
6100 Executive Boulevard, Room 5B01, MSC 7510 Bethesda, MD 20892-7510

For more information about the Association’s resources on No Child Left Behind and related policy issues, please contact the Public Information Office of the International Reading Association, 800 Barksdale Rd., PO Box 8139, Newark, DE 19714-8139, USA. Phone: 302-731-1600, ext. 293; fax: 302-731-1057; e-mail: pubinfo@reading.org.