Better Accountability Procedures Needed in NSF and NIH Research Grant Systems

GAO assessed the systems used by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to determine which research proposals by colleges, universities, and other nonprofit research institutions are to be funded and how scientific performance on the grants is assessed when continued support is provided. Specifically, GAO focused on the peer review system of the scientific performance accountability system which is used in large measure to determine which research proposals are to be funded and how scientific performance on the grants is assessed when continued support is provided.

Although the scientific performance accountability systems are basically the same at NSF and NIH, the procedures differ significantly. GAO believes that some of the NIH peer review procedures have certain advantages over those at NSF. At NIH, peer review prevented 17 percent of the researchers who sought additional grant funding from continuing their research, and their comments directly affected some of the other continued research. At NSF, none of the researchers who sought continued funding had their requests denied, but comments did eliminate some research objectives and the time requested to do the research was reduced. Unlike NIH, NSF does not ask peer reviewers to comment on the performance of the immediately preceding grant. For new project proposals, neither NSF nor NIH requires researchers to discuss prior grant results or to identify prior grant publications. NIH automatically forwards peer review comments to researchers; whereas, NSF forwards them only on request. NSF, NIH, or the universities do not uniformly monitor the progress or evaluate the results of research grants. Most of the researchers who were awarded renewal grants did not accomplish all of the objectives of the immediately preceding goal, but the researchers were expected to attempt the grant's objectives. Neither NSF nor NIH specifies the extent to which researchers can deviate from a grant's original objectives without prior agency approval.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Herbert R. Mclure Team: General Accounting Office: Program Analysis Division Phone: (202) 275-7783