Evaluation Criteria

AUCD and MCHB will identify individuals to serve as members of a reviewer pool. Members of the reviewer pool will include AUCD network members and other individuals who are recognized authorities in their respective fields and have experience serving as principal investigators or key staff and/or reviewers of grant applications or research manuscripts. An attempt will be made to maintain diversity with respect to the geographic distribution, gender, race and ethnicity of the reviewer pool to the extent possible. Every effort will be made to include reviewers from traditionally under-represented groups such as persons with disabilities and ethnic and culturally diverse groups.

Members from the reviewer pool will be selected to serve on evaluation panels based on their expertise in a proposed topic area. The evaluation panels will review and score the full applications. Evaluation panel members will not review applications in which they have a conflict of interest. To be considered as a reviewer, please complete a short form (above). AUCD will contact you to discuss possible review panel participation.

Evaluation Process

During the review, panel members are asked to consider all aspects of the application in relation to the following:

1. Grant description
2. Application outline
3. Evaluation Criteria

Evaluation Criteria

A large part of reviewers' scores will be based on the applicants' responses to the following portions of the subaward:

• Purpose (15 possible points)
  Does the applicant present an organized description of the need for this project? Are the outlined goals and objectives appropriate for this grant?
• Organization & Administration (15 possible points)
  Is the staff appropriately trained and well suited to carry out this project?
• Setting (15 possible points)
  Does the project take advantage of unique features of the setting or employ useful collaborative arrangements? Does the setting in which this project will take place contribute to the probability of success? Is there evidence of institutional support for this project?
• Methodology (30 possible points)
  Are the proposed recruitment methodolgies well defined?  Is the project's approach adequately developed, well integrated and appropriate to the goals of the project? If the goals of the project are achieved, how will the project advance LEND interdisciplinary training? Do the methods of evaluation address effectiveness and efficiency in accomplishing the goals of the grant? Are the methods of evaluation adequate to ensure accurate program evaluation and data collection?
• Impact & Outcomes (25 possible points)
  Does the proposal include an appropriate plan of evaluation for meeting the stated goals?  Are the numbers of trainees to be trained appropriate for the size and scope of the project?  Are proposed development and dissemination methodologies adequate and appropriate according to the guidance?  Is it clear that the proposed project is set to achieve the goals of the overall minigrant guidance?

A complete application is worth a total of 100 points. Applications will be rated on the numerical scale below. Those applications that average a "disqualified" score during the written review will not be eligible to continue to the final scoring and award process.

Category                         Total Points
Highly Recommended        90-100
Qualified                            75-89
Disqualified                         0-74