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External Peer Review Program

This program was established to help you find funding and build collaborations to help you build and continue a successful academic career.

The External Peer Review Program for SSHA Faculty provides financial support as incentive for external reviewers to assist SSHA faculty in the development of their proposals. This program has been designed to assist SSHA faculty in the development of grant and foundation proposals that do not meet the monetary or other eligibility criteria of the Faculty Success Initiative Peer Review Pre-submission Review Program through the Office of Research and Economic Development.

SSHA’s Faculty Research Liaison, Andrés Hernández, is available for assistance with the External Peer Review Program for SSHA Faculty and can be contacted at: ssha.research@ucmerced.edu.

Eligibility Criteria:

  • Proposals must be targeted to a Federal, Foundation, State, or local community sponsor.
  • The proposal must not exceed 99K in direct costs if it is from a federal agency or foundation that has full indirect costs. See the ORED pre-submission review initiative for proposals to federal agencies or foundations that exceed 99K in direct costs that have full indirect costs.
  • Grants with direct costs larger than 99K are eligible but must have some minimal associated indirect costs.
  • Grants with less than 25K in direct costs may be eligible for this program. Please consult with Andrés if you are interested in this program for a grant that is less than 25K in direct costs.
  • The lead PI must be a SSHA faculty member.
  • The external reviewer must be external to all campuses of which the PI(s) and co-investigator(s) are affiliated.
  • New and Resubmissions are eligible.
  • The proposal must be submitted via SSHA.

Steps to Apply:

  1. Identify a grant call to which you want to apply.
  2. Choose/identify the scoring rubric utilized by the agency/program/foundation to which you plan to apply. This document is for the chosen reviewer to use for their review (see External Reviewer Agreement Form for more information). Generic National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health scoring rubrics are available by clicking the following hyperlinked documents: NSF Scoring Criteria and NIH Scoring Rubric. Examples of scoring templates for foundation sponsors are also available on this site.
  3. Identify an external reviewer that you have confirmed is willing to review your proposal as part of this program.
  4. Download, complete, and sign the External Reviewer Agreement Form. 
  5. Send the completed External Reviewer Agreement Form to chosen external reviewer for approval and signature (hand or electronic signature is ok). All sections of the External Reviewer Agreement Form must be completed prior to sending to the external reviewer.
  6. Submit the completed, signed (by both proposer and reviewer), External Reviewer Agreement Form and the following documents to ssha.research@ucmerced.edu at least 4 weeks prior to the Sponsor’s submission deadline (applications submitted less than 4-weeks prior to the Sponsor deadline will not be accepted):
    • Biosketch
    • Project Summary (one page max)
    • Direct and indirect monetary amounts to which you are applying.
      Reviewer comments from prior submissions (required for resubmissions).
  7. In one page:
    • Justification for why you are seeking external peer review support for your grant proposal.
    • How this grant proposal will advance your research program and the Mission and Vision of SSHA.

Once Approved:

  1. The PI will be notified to send the proposal, biosketch, appropriate review scoring rubric, and other relevant proposal documents to the reviewer. ‘Other relevant proposal documents’ can be decided in consultation with the chosen reviewer.
  2. Once the review has been completed, the PI must email the reviewer comments to: ssha.research@ucmerced.edu within one week of the Sponsor’s submission deadline.
  3. Payment will be initiated to the reviewer.