In response to the inquiry about intramural funding peer review processes:

Our institution provides intramural funding for research in two categories:
small project grants ($10,000 or less) and large project grants ($100,000 or
less per year for up to two years).  We utilize a peer review process for
evaluating the scientific merit of these applications as follows:

 1. Small project grants:

 A list of in-house reviewers is consulted and two individuals with
 expertise sufficient to review the application are contacted.  The
 application is sent to them and either a meeting or conference call is
 scheduled for the review.   I participate in the meeting or conference
 call as the scientific review administrator.  The meetings generally
 take about an hour and are tape-recorded.   The tape recording is then
 used to generate a "pink sheet" that provides substantive feedback for
 the investigator.  The applications are either approved, deferred
 pending revision, or disapproved (very rarely).

 2. Large project grants:

 These proposals are reviewed externally.  The PI submits with the
 proposal a name or names of "reviewer nominators", individuals close
 enough to the research area to be able to identify competent reviewers.
 I contact these "nominators" and obtain the names of individuals who
 might be willing to review the proposal.  Three individuals are
 selected (from anywhere in the world) and a conference call is
 scheduled to the review the proposal.  As with the small project
 grants, the conference call is tape-recorded, however the reviewers are
 also asked independently to provide a scientific merit score on a scale
 of 1.00 to 5.00.  A merit review summary is prepared from the tape
 recording and an average score is calculated.  Generally, only
 proposals with a score below a certain level are eligible for funding.

This process for reviewing intramural applications has been in place for five
years at our institution.  We generally review about 25 large project
applications and about 35-40 small project applications each year. Although it
involves considerable effort, the feedback has been positive.  Most
investigators appreciate the substantive merit review summary and the use of
external reviewers has depoliticized the process for the large awards.  Even
the small projects that are reviewed internally receive an appropriate level of
peer review in terms of clinical/scientific relevance and significance and the
fundamental aspects of study design and experimental methods.

Hope this information is helpful.

Eric M. Cottington, Ph.D.
Director, Research Support
Allegheny-Singer Research Institute
320 East North Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15212
412-359-1510
xxxxxx@singer.asri.edu