THE ROLE OF THE SRO (SCIENTIFIC REVIEW OFFICER)
The SRO, formerly SRA, serves an important role in the review process.
The SRO first verifies that your application was assigned to the appropriate review committee. If you believe that your application has been assigned to the wrong review committee, first call the SRO and discuss the situation. If you still think it is the wrong committee and the SRO will not reassign it, then call the SRO's Chief. If you have a solid case, then you should get results. If the Chief does not agree to reassign the application and you are 100% certain that your application is wrongly assigned, then call the Director of the Scientific Division in which your application is assigned. If you still do not get results, then you might rethink whether or not you are right. It is my experience that once you get to the Director level, you will always be dealing with a person who is quite rational and interested in solving problems.
Now the SRO will determine what expertise is needed to review your application. This is crucial. You must control this step. Here is how to control this step. Write your Project Summary in a very clear and concise manner. Include all of the key areas of expertise that will be needed in the first two or three sentences. I can show you how to do this. I read many Project Summaries from which I could not garner the expertise that was needed to review the application. I then dug into the Specific Aims (and farther) to figure it out, but not all SROs will do that. Many SROs will simply make their best guess. If your application is not assigned to the right reviewers, you are in trouble and it is too late to do anything about it!
Next, the SRO must recruit reviewers based on the areas of expertise needed. Again, SROs differ in their diligence here, but in my experience the majority does a good job.
Now the SRO will set up the meeting and orient reviewers to the specific review criteria for SBIR/STTRs. This is a bit of a crap shoot. SROs vary in their ability and diligence in this area and reviewers vary in their ability and diligence in following the instructions. These are the main reasons to write your application in a very solid manner. If an application is solid, then these X factors will play a smaller role.
Finally, the SRO writes up the Summary and Resume of Discussion for all of the applications were scored and posts the summary statement on the eRA Commons.
The job of the SRO is to do ones best to see that the applications are reviewed for scientific and technical merit according to the rules of the NIH. This means providing a conflict free and fair evaluation of each application. In my experience there is serious dedication on the part of the NIH and the vast majority of SROs in this regard.
However, the NIH does work under serious time and budget constraints, which necessarily limits the quality of the review process. Thus there are numerous weaknesses in the process. The informed applicant can learn how to turn these weaknesses into advantages.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me or go to SBIR-STTRgrantshelp.com.
Click on this link to read about my E-Book: High Level SBIR/STTR Grant Writing Techniques.
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