The changing face of peer review at the National Institutes of Health.

OBJECTIVE

To discuss the new peer review system at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and to present the process undertaken to accomplish these changes, with an emphasis on the reproductive sciences.

DESIGN

A discussion of the many NIH committees and their composition and reports leading to the changes in peer review affecting the reproductive sciences.

RESULT(S) AND CONCLUSION(S): The Center for Scientific Review (CSR), which reviews grants for all NIH Institutes, will initiate the Cellular, Molecular, and Integrative Reproduction, the Integrative and Clinical Endocrinology and Reproduction, and the Pregnancy and Neonatology study sections in February 2004. The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)'s Division of Scientific Review has the following subcommittees, which started review in July 2003: Pediatrics; Developmental Biology; Biobehavior and Behavior Sciences; Population Science; Obstetrics and Maternal-Fetal Biology; Reproduction, Andrology, and Gynecology; and Function, Integration, and Rehabilitation Science.