As part of FCF’s commitment to deepen patient and caregiver involvement in our research process, FCF has launched its Community Reviewer Program. This new program brings together fibrolamellar community members with prominent scientists to evaluate the merit of research grant applications that have been submitted to the Foundation for funding.
Community reviewers can be either fibrolamellar patients or caregivers who have an interest in expanding their personal scientific knowledge about FLC and are willing to represent the views of the entire FLC community in the process. Specifically, the work entails reading research applications, providing brief written evaluations of each application and participating in funding decision meetings for the applications under review. The pilot implementation of this program launched in July 2022.
FCF’s grant review process includes the following steps:
- In each grant application cycle, FCF’s research team assembles the review panels for newly submitted grant requests. Each application for funding is typically read and scored by 5 reviewers – 3 scientific reviewers who are chosen for their expertise in the subject matter of the grant, plus two community reviewers.
- Each reviewer is required to sign FCF’s non-disclosure and conflict of interest policies, agreeing to not discuss or share any information about the grant applications and application discussions with anyone not involved in the review process.
- After receiving their assigned applications and detailed instructions on the process, the reviewers read the application materials in detail.
- Reviewers then provide written feedback on important components of the application, plus an overall assessment of the proposal. Community reviewers are asked to focus on assessing the objectives and potential impact of the proposed study but are welcome to comment on all aspects of the proposal.
- All assigned reviewers then attend decision meetings to share and discuss the panel members’ perspectives on the individual applications and create preliminary funding recommendations.
- The outcomes of those meetings are summarized and recommended proposals are presented to FCF’s Board of Directors for final decisions.
If you would be interested in participating in a future cycle of the Community Reviewer Program, please contact us at info@fibrofoundation.org.
Thank you for considering this opportunity to accelerate fibrolamellar research!