On November 24, 2025, as part of its broader guidance on reopening extramural activities after the October 1–November 2025 lapse in federal appropriations, NIH’s Office of Extramural Research announced Emergency Modifications to NIH Peer Review. The notice changes how much of NIH’s application backlog gets full committee discussion at study section meetings, while NIH says it remains committed to completing all three of its standard fiscal-year 2026 review rounds. A follow-up notice, NOT-OD-26-069, “Continuation of Modifications to Peer Review Practices,” extended the modified approach further into the fiscal year.
What actually changed: a three-tier triage, not a new number of rounds
NIH’s dual-level review structure — study sections conduct the initial scientific merit review, then an Institute or Center’s advisory council conducts a second-level review before funding decisions — already runs on three review rounds per fiscal year, tied to NIH’s standard due dates and typically culminating in council meetings around January, May, and September. That three-round annual cadence is NIH’s long-standing baseline, not something introduced in November 2025.
What the Emergency Modifications notice actually changes is how many applications get discussed within that existing structure. NIH’s shutdown-driven backlog was substantial by its own account: more than 370 peer review meetings were cancelled between October 1 and November 14, 2025, affecting the review of more than 24,000 applications and involving more than 11,000 reviewers. To clear that backlog within the existing three-round schedule, NIH’s modification has study sections vote applications into three discussion tiers instead of discussing roughly the top half as before:
- Top tier (roughly 30–35% of applications): discussed in the review meeting as usual and considered for funding.
- Middle tier: designated “competitive but not discussed” — still eligible for funding consideration based on preliminary scores, but without a full committee discussion.
- Bottom tier: not discussed and not considered competitive.
NIH’s notice states these modifications remain in effect through the May 2026 Advisory Council round — i.e., NIH intends the compressed-discussion approach to be temporary, scoped to working through the shutdown backlog across the January and May 2026 rounds, not a permanent redesign of peer review.
Separately reported: concerns about political influence on funding decisions
Around the same period, Science (AAAS) reported on a related but distinct policy shift at NIH: guidance stating that funding decisions should weigh factors beyond peer-review scores — including “health priorities, scientific opportunities, the workforce, availability of funds, and the wider research portfolio” — and that this shift, along with NIH’s disbanding of the Center for Scientific Review’s own advisory council, was implemented without the standard internal consultation or public input that this kind of change has historically gone through. Science‘s reporting is explicit that these are concerns raised by sources it spoke with about the risk of political appointees gaining more influence over which grants get funded, not a claim that peer-review scientific judgments themselves have been overridden in specific cases.
KFF Health News reported similar concerns independently, describing an added HHS-level screening step in which grant language is scanned for terms the administration has flagged as politically sensitive, and characterizing the overall effect as giving political appointees — rather than only scientific reviewers — greater say over which applications are ultimately funded.
It’s worth being precise about what’s verified and what’s characterization here: the shutdown-recovery triage mechanism described above is documented directly in NIH’s own notices. The “political meddling” framing is journalists’ and their sources’ characterization of a separate, parallel set of changes to funding-decision criteria and advisory-council oversight — reported by multiple outlets, but not NIH’s own description of its policy. Research administrators should treat the mechanical peer-review changes and the criticism of funding-decision governance as two related but analytically separate developments, both unfolding inside the same November 2025 policy window.
What this means for grants offices and PIs
- Track notice numbers, not just headlines. NOT-OD-26-012 and NOT-OD-26-069 are the operative NIH Guide notices; both are subject to further amendment as NIH works through the FY2026 backlog, so check the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts directly rather than relying on a single point-in-time summary, including this one.
- A “competitive but not discussed” score is not the same as a discussed priority score. Applicants and administrators should confirm with program staff how a given Institute or Center is actually using tier placement in funding decisions before assuming a familiar payline logic still applies unchanged.
- Advisory council composition and independence are now a live governance question, not just a peer-review mechanics one, per the reporting above — worth monitoring alongside the standard scientific merit review process.
- Expect continued schedule compression through the May 2026 council round, per NIH’s own stated timeline, with the possibility of further continuation notices if the backlog isn’t fully cleared by then.
See CASRAI’s broader coverage of NIH’s fiscal year 2026 funding landscape in NIH funding cuts in 2026: what actually happened and NIH’s 27-to-8 Institute Consolidation: 2026 Status, and the CASRAI Grants Management & Research Funding hub for related grants-lifecycle guidance.
