Key Contacts: Andrea Wurster (NIAID DEA OERPO)

Title: Application Percentiling Effective date: 3/10/16 Lead author(s): Nancy Vázquez-Maldonado, Jim Snyder, Lisa Vytlacil, Rebecca Wagenaar-Miller Authorizing official: Priti Mehrotra Approval date: 3/8/16 Reviewed by: SASOP Committee/Faculty Training Module Review date: February 2017

Purpose: This document describes the standard operating procedure and information for application percentiling.

Scope: NIAID SRP

Definitions: Division of Extramural Activities (DEA); Office of Extramural Research Policy and Operations (OERPO); Scientific Review Program (SRP)

Related Document Link: None

Procedure: General Information Applications can receive a percentile depending on IC, mechanism/activity code, FOA, and SEP specifications.

The SRO is responsible for determining the correct percentile designation and informing the ESA. The ESAs should check in advance to see if the RFA is being percentiled and if so will inform the SRO. It is recommended to check the percentile designation during Admin Review or right after Mailout because it takes at least 1 week to change the setting in IMPAC II via Andrea Wurster. If the percentile designation is checked after the meeting before releasing the scores and found inappropriate it may not get corrected on time.

For NIAID: . R01s and U01s submitted in response to the investigator-initiated clinical trial (IICTs) PARs are percentiled. . Other applications are normally not percentiled, but they can be based on a programmatic decision made prior to the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) release date (case by case basis).

Andrea Wurster (NIAID DEA OERPO) uses the IMPAC II\Peer Review\Percentiles\Application Administration module shown below to include or exclude specific mechanisms/activity codes, FOAs, or SEPs. OERPO checks the included RFA list every Friday to ensure the RFAs have the correct percentiling designation. This IMPAC II section is read-only for SRP Staff. IMPAC II\Peer Review\Percentiles\Application Administration module’s NIAID-specific defaults (see the screen shot): . R01, RC1, RC4, and U01 applications submitted in response to a PA/PAR/PAS should be listed in the ‘Percentiled Activities’ section (box #1). The other check boxes in this section are used to determine the percentile base and do not need to be selected by SRP Staff. o Note: To view U01 applications go to next page in box #1 (green ellipse) . R01, RC1, RC4, and U01 applications submitted in response to a PA/PAR/PAS that do not need to be percentiled are entered into the ‘Excluded PAs’ section (box #2) . RFAs are not percentiled unless added to the ‘Included RFAs’ section (box #3) . Specific SEPs can be excluded if added to the ‘Percentile Restrictions’ section (box #4)

Preview Percentiles in IMPAC II (Available only when all applications for a meeting are percentiled) After the final scores have been entered and before they are released, the application percentiles can be previewed per reviewer. 1. Open the IMPAC II\Peer Review\Meeting Admin\Enter Scores window. 2. Click on the ‘Check Errors’ link.

3. After no score errors are found, the “Preview Percentiles” link will appear and can be used to preview the listed application percentiles.

Post-Score Release Percentiles After the final scores are released for a meeting, the application percentiles are calculated and available on the Voter Matrix and Composite Score reports available in the IMPAC II\Reports module. Note: If percentiles are listed on the above reports for applications that are not supposed to be percentiled: 1. Contact Andrea Wurster (NIAID DEA OERPO) to request the related mechanism/activity code, FOA, or SEP Percentiles module change. The turnaround time for Becky to correct the percentile designation is about a week. 2. After the change is complete, re-release the scores to remove the percentile data from the related IMPAC II forms and reports.