Justification Memo

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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES National Institutes of Health

Center for Scientific Review

Office of the Director

6701 Rockledge Dr., Rm. 3016

Bethesda, Maryland 20892-7776

December 18, 2013

To: Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

Through: Reports Clearance Officer, DHHS

Project Clearance Chief, NIH

From: Dr. Mary Ann Noecker Guadagno, Health Scientist Administrator

Office of Planning, Analysis and Evaluation

Center for Scientific Review (CSR)

Subject: Center for Scientific Review (CSR),

CSR New Chair Orientation Survey (OMB Control Number: 0925-0474)

Circumstances Requiring the Survey: The Center for Scientific Review (CSR) is the portal of the NIH peer-review system. Its mission is to ensure that NIH grant applications receive a fair, independent, expert and timely scientific review. A critical element in achieving this kind of peer-review is the choice of the study section Chair. Distinguished senior scientists nominated by CSR Scientific Review Officers (SROs) to serve as study section Chairs are committed to chair broad-based study sections to review over 86,000 grant applications submitted to CSR each year and serve as effective leaders of more than 16,000 volunteer reviewers. To orient new Chairs to critical issues in peer review and assist them in achieving peer review of the highest quality and fairness, CSR has expended considerable effort in providing an orientation to new Chairs on pre- and post-meeting responsibilities and meeting management skills prior to their services at CSR as Study Section Chairs. To better understand the effectiveness and quality of the study section Chair orientation, CSR proposes to conduct a formative evaluation of the new chair orientation sessions under the OMB control number 0925-0474, with expiration date 10/31/2014.

Purposes and Uses of the Data Collection: The survey will assess study section Chairs’ satisfaction with the orientation they received. It will also allow the Chairs to indicate areas for improvement and make candid comments and constructive suggestions about their orientation sessions. Information collected from the survey will help refine and improve the quality of future CSR Chair orientations.

To reduce the burden on Chairs and assure privacy, automated information technology will be used to collect and process data for this survey. Attendees of the study section Chair orientation will be provided a unique code and password to access and conduct a secure online survey on the orientation session they attended. Participation in the survey will be strictly voluntary and individual respondents will not be identified. CSR will not provide payment or other forms of remuneration to respondents in collecting feedback. Respondents will be assured that neither their participation/non-participation nor any responses in the survey will be linked to their identity and will have any effect on their services at CSR.

Estimates of Burden Hours and Costs

Types of Respondents	Number of Respondents	Frequency of Responses per Respondent	Average Response Time in hours	Total Burden Hours
Attendees of CSR Study Section Chair Training	90	1	10/60	15

There are no additional costs to the respondent other than their time.