Review and Scoring

How proposals are reviewed and scored, and who applicants may contact while a solicitation is open.

• DoW SBIR/STTR Evaluation CriteriaDoW SBIR/STTR proposals are judged on three criteria in descending order of importance: technical merit and innovation, qualifications of the team, and potential for commercialization.
• Overall Impact ScoreThe overall impact score is NIH reviewers' rating of how likely a project is to exert a sustained, powerful influence on its research field, scored from 1 (exceptional) to 9 (poor).
• Pre-ReleaseThe pre-release period is the first phase of a DoW SBIR/STTR announcement, when topics are posted but proposals are not yet accepted and applicants may ask topic authors technical questions directly.
• Resubmission (A1)An NIH resubmission (A1) is a revised version of an unfunded application (A0), allowed once, with a short introduction that responds to the reviewers' critiques in the summary statement.
• Study SectionA study section, or Scientific Review Group, is an NIH peer review panel of outside scientists that evaluates the scientific and technical merit of grant applications in the first level of review.
• Summary StatementThe summary statement is the official NIH document from peer review, giving the reviewers' written critiques, criterion scores, the outcome, and a summary of any panel discussion.
• Topic Q&ATopic Q&A is the DSIP feature where applicants submit written technical questions about a DoW SBIR/STTR topic and all questions and answers are posted publicly without identifying the people involved.
• TPOC (Technical Point of Contact)The Technical Point of Contact, or Topic Author, is the government technical expert named in a DoW SBIR/STTR topic whom applicants may contact with technical questions during pre-release.