Summary National Institute of Food and Agriculture U.S. Department of Agriculture
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Course
NIFA AGRICULTURE
Institution
NIFA AGRICULTURE
Supporting Statement for Paperwork Reduction Act Submission to Revise a
Currently Approved Information Collection for the NIFA Proposal Review
Process
A. JUSTIFICATION
1. CIRCUMSTANCES MAKING COLLECTION OF INFORMATION NECESSARY
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), National Insti...
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
U.S. Department of Agriculture
OMB No. 0524-0041
NIFA Proposal Review Process
SUBJECT: Supporting Statement for Paperwork Reduction Act Submission to Revise a
Currently Approved Information Collection for the NIFA Proposal Review
Process
A. JUSTIFICATION
1. CIRCUMSTANCES MAKING COLLECTION OF INFORMATION NECESSARY
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), National Institute of Food and
Agriculture (NIFA) administers competitive, peer-reviewed research, education, and
extension programs. The reviews are undertaken to ensure that projects supported by
NIFA are of a high-quality and are consistent with the goals and requirements of the
funding program. These programs are authorized pursuant to the authorities contained in
the National Agricultural Research, Extension, and Teaching Policy Act of 1977, as
amended (7 U.S.C. 3101), the Smith-Lever Act, and other legislative authorities.
This information collection is authorized under 7 CFR 3430.10 specifically for the Small
Business Innovation Research program, and 7 CFR 3430 which governs competition in
the awarding of discretionary grants and cooperative agreements for NIFA. Section 33 of
7 CFR 3430 specifies the criteria that are to be used to select reviewers including their
relevant training and experience, the variety of specialization and expertise, their location
and organization type, and minority representation. Reviewers are to make written
comments, as appropriate, for each application. It also specifies that confidentiality of
the reviewers and applicants is maintained, and conflicts of interest evaluated with care
to remove any actual or perceived conflicts, and that reviewers provide this assurance
through the NIFA Peer Review System (PRS). PRS is a web-based system which allows
reviewers and potential reviewers to update personal information, provide assurances for
confidentiality, and to complete and submit reviews electronically to NIFA. Electronic
reviews are included in the application electronic record maintained at NIFA.
NIFA is updating this already approved collection to leverage these reviewer assurances
and implement electronic collection of the Conflict of Interest and Confidentiality form
that was previously approved, to increase the integrity of the internal electronic record of
the application. This electronic approval will be updated within the PRS system to
reviewers in its entirety, and reviewers will indicate acceptance by clicking an Agree or
Disagree button on the screen to indicate acceptance of the policy, prior to application
review.
NIFA is also requesting that reviewer demographics information, not previously updated
through the PRS system, be included as question seven on the Reviewer Questionnaire.
Demographics are already collected from applicants, including Project Directors and Co-
Project Directors, using forms OMB 4040-001, Research & Related Personal Data and
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, the Research & Related Senior/Key Person Profile (Expanded) of the approved R&R
Family. Since many applicants may also be reviewers, NIFA is proposing to leverage
information collected from these forms to populate the additional question to be
presented to reviewers for update, if applicable. If this information is unavailable for a
reviewer from a previous application with NIFA, then it will be a new collection from a
new reviewer. This criteria for the NIFA Peer-Review process is specified in 7 CFR
3430.33 and 7 CFR 3403.10, and will include gender, race, and ethnicity to ensure that
reviewers represent a broad demographic range. This addition will allow NIFA to
standardize and leverage the information in our reviewer database to select reviewers
more effectively, and allow for the information to be included in the application’s
electronic record. The additional question is added to the previously approved Reviewer
Questionnaire submitted as question seven, and would be implemented in a future PRS
update.
NIFA receives research, education, and extension grant applications each year, of which
approximately a quarter are awarded. The majority of these applications are subjected to
a rigorous peer-review involving technical experts (scientists, educators, farmers,
engineers, extension specialists) located world-wide. Given the highly technical nature
of many of these applications, the quality of the peer-review greatly depends on the
appropriate matching of the subject matter of the application with the technical expertise
of the potential reviewer. NIFA maintains a database of potential reviewers. Information
in the database is used to match applications with the most appropriate (potential)
reviewers. Therefore, the accuracy and completeness of the database content is integral to
the success of the NIFA peer review process.
If this information is not collected, it would be difficult for a review panel and NIFA staff
to determine which projects warrant funding, or identify appropriate qualified reviewers.
In addition, Federal grants staff and auditors could not assess the quality or integrity of
the review, and the writer of the application would not benefit from any feedback on why
the application was funded or not. The additional demographics information of this
update would standardize how NIFA leverages and updates the information in our
database to increase the integrity of the reviewer database and the reviewer selection
process. This also would help increase the integrity of our application electronic records
by allowing the information to be included. Current processes record this information in
manual Management Reports and paper-based records.
2. HOW, BY WHOM, AND PURPOSE FOR WHICH INFORMATION IS TO BE USED
The NIFA Application Review Process is accomplished through the use of the NIFA Peer
Review System (PRS). This web-based system allows reviewers and potential reviewers
to update personal information, provide assurances for confidentiality, and complete and
submit reviews electronically to NIFA.
Information about potential panel and ad hoc reviewers is collected via an electronic
Reviewer Questionnaire. New reviewers are prompted via an e-mail message to
complete the questionnaire. The information from the completed questionnaire is loaded
into a NIFA reviewer database system. The questionnaire collects basic biographical
information including address, contact information, and professional expertise. This
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