fast track for 2022 Peer Review Integrity survey

Request for Approval under the “Generic Clearance for the Collection of Routine Customer Feedback” (OMB#: 0925-0648 Exp., date: 06/30/2024)

TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION: Feedback on the Center for Scientific Review’s (CSR) 2022 Integrity in Peer Review Training

PURPOSE: NIH depends on CSRs’ peer review process to ensure that all NIH grant applications receive fair, independent, expert, and timely reviews that are free from inappropriate influences. A critical element in achieving this quality of peer review is to educate reviewers on the importance of upholding the highest standards of integrity in the NIH peer review process. Maintaining integrity in the peer review process—which include issues related to confidentiality, conflicts of interest, inappropriate external influences, and security-- is essential for reviewers who exchange scientific opinions and evaluations, for protecting applicants’ trade secrets or other proprietary, sensitive and/or confidential information, and for providing reliable input to the agency about research projects to support. In addition, upholding integrity in the peer review process is important for maintaining public trust in science and in the peer review system. The Center for Scientific Review (CSR) has expended considerable effort in creating and distributing an online training to help educate NIH reviewers on how to maintain integrity in peer review as well as the consequences for violations of review integrity. CSR proposes to conduct a survey to understand the effectiveness of the training and reviewer’s general satisfaction with the training. Information collected from the survey will help refine and improve the quality of future CSR trainings on integrity in peer review.

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONDENTS: Respondents will be approximately 10,000 NIH grant reviewers. Most of these individuals are research scientists who work at academic universities across the U.S.

TYPE OF COLLECTION: (Check one)

[ ] Customer Comment Card/Complaint Form [X] Customer Satisfaction Survey

[ ] Usability Testing (e.g., Website or Software [ ] Small Discussion Group

[ ] Focus Group [ ] Other: ______________________

CERTIFICATION:

I certify the following to be true:

1. The collection is voluntary.

2. The collection is low-burden for respondents and low-cost for the Federal Government.

3. The collection is non-controversial and does not raise issues of concern to other federal agencies.

4. The results are not intended to be disseminated to the public.

5. Information gathered will not be used for the purpose of substantially informing influential policy decisions.

6. The collection is targeted to the solicitation of opinions from respondents who have experience with the program or may have experience with the program in the future.

Name: Hope Cummings________________________________________________

To assist review, please provide answers to the following question:

Personally Identifiable Information:

1. Is personally identifiable information (PII) collected? [ ] Yes [X] No

2. If Yes, is the information that will be collected included in records that are subject to the Privacy Act of 1974? [ ] Yes [ ] No

3. If Applicable, has a System or Records Notice been published? [ ] Yes [ ] No

Gifts or Payments:

Is an incentive (e.g., money or reimbursement of expenses, token of appreciation) provided to participants? [ ] Yes [X] No

ESTIMATED BURDEN HOURS and COSTS

Category of Respondent	No. of Respondents	No. of Responses per Respondent	Time per Response (in hours)	Total Burden Hours
Individuals	10,000	1	5/60	833
Totals		10,000		833

COST TO RESPONDENT

Category of Respondent	Total Burden Hours	Hourly Wage Rate*	Total Burden Cost
Individuals	833	$38.81	$32,328.73
Total			$32,328.73

*The wage rate was obtained from https://www.bls.gov/oes/2021/may/oes_nat.htm#19-0000

FEDERAL COST: The estimated annual cost to the Federal government is 2,945.44

Staff	Grade/Step	Salary*	% of Effort	Fringe (if applicable)	Total Cost to Gov’t
Federal Oversight
Health Scientist Administrator	GS-14/6	147,272	2%		2,945.44
Contractor Cost					N/A
Travel					N/A
Other Cost					N/A
Total					2,945.44

*the Salary in table above is cited from https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/pdf/2022/DCB.pdf

If you are conducting a focus group, survey, or plan to employ statistical methods, please provide answers to the following questions:

The selection of your targeted respondents

1. Do you have a customer list or something similar that defines the universe of potential respondents and do you have a sampling plan for selecting from this universe? [X] Yes [ ] No

If the answer is yes, please provide a description of both below (or attach the sampling plan)? If the answer is no, please provide a description of how you plan to identify your potential group of respondents and how you will select them?

The customer list will consist of individuals who will serve as NIH reviewers. The rosters for the review meetings will be used as the participant list. Most of these individuals are research scientists who work at academic universities across the U.S.

Administration of the Instrument

1. How will you collect the information? (Check all that apply)

[X] Web-based or other forms of Social Media

[ ] Telephone

[ ] In-person

[ ] Mail

[ ] Other, Explain

2. Will interviewers or facilitators be used? [ ] Yes [X] No

Please make sure that all instruments, instructions, and scripts are submitted with the request.

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