Resources for Cancer Prevention and Control

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Peer Review

Peer review is conducted by a review panel of highly qualified experts from outside the State of Texas.

Applications are assigned to at least 3 reviewers for scoring. Applications are reviewed based on the criteria described in the RFA and are not compared to other applications. Applications with the highest premeeting overall scores and, therefore, the highest potential for funding are discussed at the peer review meeting. Applications with lower overall scores are not discussed in detail at the meeting.

During discussion of an application at the peer review meeting, every review panel member provides an overall score for the application. For applications not discussed at the peer review meeting, the overall evaluation score represents an average of the overall scores provided only by the reviewers assigned to evaluate the application.

Results of the peer review meetings are forwarded to the Prevention Review Council.

Programmatic Review Process and Priorities

The Prevention Review Council (PRC) is composed of the Chairs of the Peer Review Committees and the PRC Chair. The goals of the programmatic review are to meet budget guidelines and to balance the CPRIT portfolio by selecting the best projects based on the programmatic priorities (listed below.) Applications must be within the score range (determined by the PRC) to be considered during programmatic review. Applications below the set score range are not considered for programmatic review. At this level of review, recommendations for funding are based on comparisons with applications from all of the merit review panels and programmatic priorities. The order of scores may be disregarded in favor of programmatic considerations.

Programmatic Priorities include but may not be limited to:

1. Potential for Public Health Impact and Return on Investment (ROI)
   • Based on the project’s potential impact on cancer prevention and control (e.g. to reduce risk, prevent cancer, detect cancer early, improve quality of life for survivors) and demonstration of a strong evidence base
   • ROI—good investment for cost of program and ability to defend cost per person as reasonable
2. Geographic Distribution
   • High incidence, mortality areas for Texas
   • Areas not well served in current CPRIT portfolio
3. Cancer Type
   • CPRIT may support all cancers that have evidence-based prevention interventions but may prioritize based on high incidence, mortality, prevalence of risk factors
   • Geographic distribution of cancer type in CPRIT portfolio
4. Type of Program in CPRIT Portfolio
   • Primary, secondary, tertiary prevention
   • Public education and outreach, professional education and training, clinical service delivery