The National Brain Tumor Society's research grant application review is a two-step process built on standards set by the National Institutes of Health. Letters of Intent (LOI) are submitted electronically and immediately undergo an administrative review to ensure that application guidelines are met. Members of the NBTS Scientific Advisory Council (SAC), led by the Chair and Vice Chair, oversee the review process for each NBTS grant program.

Three reviewers are assigned to each application: a Category Chair, Primary Reviewer and Secondary Reviewer. A Category Chair is assigned to each specialty area (e.g. Experimental Therapeutics, Signal Transduction, etc.) to oversee the review of LOIs in that category. Category Chairs are selected by the SAC Chair and the NBTS Board of Directors’ Research Grant Committee based on scientific expertise and research experience in that specialty area. Each Category Chair is responsible for facilitating the review of applications in their specialty area. Careful consideration is made to prevent conflict of interest between the reviewers and the applicants.

Reviewers are responsible for scoring the application based on scientific merit and presenting the project during the review teleconferences. The review conference is comprised of all members of the SAC, key members of the Research Grant Committee, and senior research staff members. Category Chairs facilitate project presentations (made by the reviewers) and the ensuing discussion among SAC members.

During this review, those reviewers who are recognized as having a conflict of interest with the applicant and/or the project are asked to disconnect from the call. They do not participate in the discussion, nor are they permitted to submit a score. At the end of the discussion, all SAC members (who do not have a recognized conflict of interest) assign the LOI a collective, final score.

When discussion concludes, the final scores are reviewed. With these scores, the SAC determines the LOIs that are invited to submit a full application. Full applications are reviewed by the primary and secondary reviewers who evaluated the original LOI. The scoring and discussion process (during a second teleconference) of full applications follows the phases of the LOI review. Based on the full application’s final scores, the SAC recommends projects that should receive a NBTS Research Grant Award.

The Research Grant Committee of the NBTS Board of Directors, in consultation with senior research staff, then reviews the SAC recommendations, discusses the financial considerations of each, and determines if the research furthers the overall NBTS research mission. The Research Grant Committee then presents their findings to the full NBTS Board of Directors for the final vote. Selected Research Grant Awards are formally announced and distributed in the fall of each year.