Becoming Reviewer 1
One of my altruistic goals during the pandemic was to try and keep the scientific enterprise running so I served on many study sections for both the National Institutes of Health and several foundations. As many people were overwhelmed and taking care of kids, funding officials were struggling to find reviewers, so I rarely said "No" or at least tried to negotiate a load that I could handle. I learned many things and stretched from project grants (R01 or R21-type) to program grants and fellowships with the additional selfish goal of figuring out what makes different types of grants successful. As I finally became comfortable with different review processes, I think the most important thing I learned was to become an effective Reviewer 1. Every grant usually has three reviewers (if you need a primer on NIH review there are a few posts in my old blog and on the NIH website ). Reviewer 1 is the first to speak and has the responsibility to outline the goals and significance of t
