The Merit Review Process

* A number of federal agencies, from the Department of Energy to the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, use various types of peer or merit review to evaluate proposals and make recommendations to award federal funds.* The National Science Foundation (NSF) has three funding mechanisms: grants, cooperative agreements, and contracts. NSF makes merit-based grant awards to researchers, educators, and students. In Fiscal Year 2010 (FY 10), NSF received 55,542 proposals and awarded 12,996 grants, a 23 percent funding rate. Fifty percent of its budget was devoted to new and continuing grants. 1* Approximately 96 percent of NSF grant proposals are evaluated through an external review process, commonly known as the NSF merit review process. The process utilizes subject matter experts to review proposals through the mail, in-person at a panel review, or through a combination of both (early-concept grants, rapid response grants, and small conferences and workshops are evaluated through an internal merit review process).* The NSF merit review process evaluates proposals based on two criteria, intellectual merit and broader impacts. A National Science Board Task Force is currently examining the two criteria and a report is forthcoming. Since 2007, NSF has also been promoting potentially transformative concepts through additional language added to the intellectual merit criteria.