R01 External Review Program

The UK College of Medicine Office of Research R01 External Review Program is a process that will facilitate a faculty member engaging an authoritative external reviewer to provide an assessment of a complete, but not yet submitted, R01 (or equivalent) application. For participation in this program, a complete draft of the application needs to be submitted to the Office of Research at medicineresearch@uky.edu at least 6 weeks in advance of the submission deadline. The process will be as follows:

At least eight (8) weeks ahead of the submission deadline, the faculty member should submit the name and contact information for two potential reviewers (no UK faculty and no study section members) to the College of Medicine Office of Research at medicineresearch@uky.edu. Ultimately, only one reviewer will provide a review. Two potential reviewer names are requested in the event that the first reviewer contacted is unwilling or unable to participate. The faculty member’s chair should acknowledge their agreement on the suitability of the suggestions; this may be done by the chair’s reply to the email request. It is expected that the proposed reviewers will be experts in the field and have a working knowledge of the current NIH review process. Furthermore, there would be an expectation that the external reviewer be an NIH-funded investigator. Reviewers should not have been employed by the University of Kentucky within the last 12 months, nor should they be related to an employee of the college, department, unit, or any member of the research team. Reviewers that could promote any conflict in the review process should be excluded. The College of Medicine Office of Research will inform the investigator of the acceptance and/or rejection into the R01 External Review Program and the acceptance and/or rejection of the external reviewer suggestions.
The R01 draft must be submitted to the College of Medicine Office of Research at least six (6) weeks ahead of the deadline. This will be a complete draft of all pages that will be included in the final proposal. The College of Medicine Office of Research will submit the draft to the reviewer.
The reviewer will submit the completed critique in NIH format to the College of Medicine Office of Research at least four (4) weeks ahead of the submission deadline.
The College of Medicine Office of Research will provide an honorarium of $500 to the reviewer for reviews that are returned within the time constraint.
Participation in this program will be factored into consideration if subsequent requests are submitted for the College of Medicine Office of Research bridge funding.