Hey folks, CSR has undergone a massive reorganization. The macro framework is in place and can be viewed online, and the micro details will come in the next couple of rounds. The new framework will structure your application review starting next (summer) round. Worth a peak for applicants!

Ok maybe just a *little* furloughed 🤦🏼‍♀️

Ashley Kopec@ashleykopec.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Hand to god, I thought I was going to be furloughed again next week 🤣 all my summary statements will be out tomorrow, all my reviewers trained, all assignments out… just in case. Just gotta role with the insanity at this point 🧘‍♀️

Hand to god, I thought I was going to be furloughed again next week 🤣 all my summary statements will be out tomorrow, all my reviewers trained, all assignments out… just in case. Just gotta role with the insanity at this point 🧘‍♀️

“The quiet power of program officers lies not in control, but in care. Care for the science, for the people who conduct it, and for the public it is meant to serve.”

Jeremy Berg@jeremymberg.bsky.social · 7mo ago

This is an outstanding essay describing some of the important roles and influences of NIH program officers (from an insider perspective). Read! elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/the-quiet-...

I’m so sad to not be at SfN this year! Go get inspired for me and report back please.

I am on it SO HARD 🤣

Drug Monkey@drugmonkey.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Live look at NIH SROs today….

You are not a schmuck. You cared enough about your colleagues to do everything in your power to get them a fair and thorough review. Because when the SROs return, we can only move to reschedule as quickly as we have all scores to know what will be discussed. You value your community. Thank you.

Paul Jenkins@pjenkinslab.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Did the reviews, like a schmuck. Only about 1/4 of the reviews were submitted. lolsob

Schrödinger's employment.

Wouldn’t it be wild if after the shutdown ends, I turn on my computer and work phone for the first time (I’m not permitted to now), and one of my missed emails is a RIF layoff? What a world.

The “problem” with vaccines? They so effective at preventing deaths that they create generations of people that question whether disease was a problem in the first place because they have never experienced the horrors of a world without vaccines.

Postdocs applying for K99s, particularly if it's your last opportunity: DO NOT forget to include a foreign justification document if you have any sort of foreign collaboration. Your application will be withdrawn if you don't have that.

And a whole lot of reviewers who want to give their colleagues and field a fair shot at progress, even as they themselves struggle. SROs and POs can’t do anything if we can’t get those grants through peer review!

Nancy Parmalee@nparmalee.bsky.social · last yr.

There are good people at NIH working very hard for every grant that is successfully funded. Congratulations all around.

H/T to my NORDP colleague MV. New NIH policies on AI just dropped. (Don't) Also "no more than six new, renewal, resubmission, or revision applications from an individual Principal Investigator/Program Director or Multiple Principal Investigator for all council rounds in a calendar year."

Also be sure to read the instructions a Forms I SF424. These Fs will have the new format/review instructions so there are different components from the previous NOFOs.

I-75 Scientist@flscitriguy.bsky.social · last yr.

Yas! Parent F32 (PA-25-423) and F30s (PA-25-426, PA-25-425) are also published. simpler.grants.gov

NYT: One estimate finds that DOGE’s “firings, re-hirings, lost productivity and paid leave of thousands of workers” will actually COST taxpayers “upward of $135 billion this fiscal year.” @nytimes.com 🤡 www.nytimes.com/2025/04/24/u...

If you were planning to submit Neuroscience related T32s to PAR-22-265, PAR-24-126, or PAR-24-108, note those are now expired and you need to submit through PAR-25-168. See this notice: grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Digging into the reinstated NIH grants. This story is an evolving doozy. The reinstated grant is an R21 from Seattle Children's Hospital I was very confused when I read the title: "An intervention to promote healthy relationships among transgender and gender expansive youth" 1/n

OK. Do you have a picture in your mind? It's worse than that...

Folks, my rescheduled review panel has been submitted to FRN

a man is walking down a hallway with a suitcase and a backpack .

ALT: a man is walking down a hallway with a suitcase and a backpack .

media.tenor.com

you’re fired. wait you’re rehired. email us a list of things you’ve done today wait forget it you’re fired again. come back your job was important. you’re fired. or hired. come in to the office. wait the office has no computers go home. we are the department of government efficiency.

Among the best articles I've read on the capture of NIH. Seeing all this laid out, it's plain that the motivation is to destroy the university and scientific system. #academicsky #neuroskyence

BWJones@bwjones.bsky.social · last yr.

By @katherinejwu.com "The NIH... supported 99 percent of the drugs approved in the U.S. from 2010 to 2019. The agency has had a hand in “nearly all of our major medical breakthroughs over the past several decades,” The NIH is in a struggle for its (and our) lives. This is existential to America:

🤣🤣🤣 we love to see it. Hang in there everyone!

Tom Kash@superkash.bsky.social · 2y ago

January 29 is now PO / SRO appreciation day in my book.

Way more people here! Anything you want to know about NIH peer review? Ever wondered why you can’t get your grant scores at meeting end? The SRO has to check them against in-discussion notes! Every meeting there are typos that take a day or two to fix. Trust me, you want those scores to be right!

A little over a year ago, I left academia, transferred my R01, and became a Scientific Review Officer at NIH. In celebration of my one year anniversary, let’s demystify the process! Any burning, *anonymous* questions you have about leaving academia?? ngl.link/ashleymkopec

@ashleymkopec: Send me anonymous messages!

NGL: Anonymous Q&A

ngl.link

Changes in review coming. I think there are a number improvements to the fellowship applications & review criteria that will help focus on the training plan & potential. nexus.od.nih.gov/all/2024/04/...

Changes Coming to Applications and Peer Review in January 2025

NIH is implementing multiple changes that will impact the preparation and peer review of most grant applications submitted to NIH for due dates on or after January 25, 2025. Although each of these ini...

nexus.od.nih.gov

Yes. Sitting on SS really helped cement to write more simply/clearly and embrace white space.

Anyone here have sinus surgery? I have a chronic infection and a deviated septum that need to be corrected. How bad is this going to be? 😬

When you reimpose child labor laws vs making kid lunches free

Taniel@taniel.bsky.social · 2y ago

A new poll finds that 70% of Minnesotans approve of the state's decision last year to make school lunches free: minnesotareformer.com/briefs/free-...

THAT'S BECAUSE PREGNANCY IS BODY HORROR like even if it is a wanted, cherished pregnancy holy shit the things that are happening in there are TERRIBLE

Wagatwe Wanjuki@wagatwe.bsky.social · 3y ago

"A new study on public attitudes toward abortion laws finds that the more people know about pregnancy, the more likely they are to oppose legislation that limits women’s access to abortions – regardless of political ideology"