NIH Is Proposing Categorical Grant Scores: What NOT-OD-26-088 Means for Your Writing Strategy

What NIH Is Proposing Under NOT-OD-26-088

NOT-OD-26-088 is a formal request for comment, which means it is a proposal, not a final rule. The core change on the table: replace the 1-to-9 numerical impact score — the number that has shaped how applicants interpret peer review for decades — with a three-tier categorical label. Applications would emerge from review as "Most competitive," "Competitive," or "Not discussed." The comment period closes October 13, 2026. Implementation details, including how the categories map to funding decisions at specific institutes, have not been published.

This isn't NIH's first move in this direction. The Simplified Review Framework, phased in starting in 2023, already reduced the number of separately scored criteria and changed how written critiques are structured. What's different here is the ambition: NOT-OD-26-088 removes the numerical precision that has defined competitive grant behavior since the 1990s. The familiar calculus of targeting a percentile, mapping scores to institute paylines, and deciding whether a 26 versus a 30 justifies a resubmission would stop working in any straightforward sense.

The stated rationale connects to the Unified Funding Strategy NIH has been building since 2025. That strategy gives institute and center directors more discretionary authority to fund based on portfolio priorities, geographic balance, workforce needs, and scientific opportunity — not just where an application ranked in a study section. A categorical system fits that philosophy: it signals competitive merit while leaving room for institute-level judgment. Whether that's a good outcome for any particular applicant depends entirely on how well your science aligns with your target institute's current priorities, and on the quality of the written record your application generates during review.

The Three Categories and What They Signal in Practice

Reading between the lines of what NIH has described, the three categories probably work like this in practice. "Not discussed" maps roughly to the current triage threshold: applications that reviewers do not bring to full panel discussion have no realistic path to funding in that cycle. That threshold hasn't changed much under the simplified review framework, and this proposal doesn't appear to change it either. If you're triaged, you get a written critique but no discussion, and your path forward is a revision.

"Competitive" would cover applications that were discussed, received meaningful written feedback, and are genuine candidates for funding under some set of institute circumstances. This is the category where the most applicants will land, and it's also the category where the least information is conveyed. An application that scores in the top 20th percentile at the study section and an application that lands in the 45th percentile might both be labeled "Competitive." That's the ambiguity NIH is asking the community to comment on.

"Most competitive" is the new target. It likely maps to something close to the applications that strong reviewer advocates are actively championing during the discussion. If you're in "Most competitive," you're in the range where funding becomes plausible at most institutes in most circumstances. But until NIH publishes the criteria for how reviewers assign these categories, and whether institute-level distributions are published after each cycle, we're reading tea leaves. The comment period is exactly the right moment to push for that specificity.

Why This Changes How You Write the Research Strategy

For most applicants, numerical scores arrive alongside the written critique. They interact in important ways. If your critique reads as mostly favorable but your impact score is a 38, you know something went wrong — a section-wide calibration effect, a disagreement between reviewers, a specific criterion that dragged the score down more than the written language implies. That information lets you decide whether to talk to your program officer, appeal the study section assignment, or simply resubmit with targeted fixes.

In a categorical system, you lose that numerical anchor. An application that comes back as "Competitive" with a mixed critique is harder to interpret than a 32 with the same critique. You'll have less signal about where within the category you landed and why. The practical consequence is that the quality and specificity of the written critique becomes more important than it is now. Review language that used to function as a polite formality alongside the number takes on real weight when it's one of your primary feedback signals.

This means drafting and revising with an eye toward generating a clearly affirmative written critique — not just a strong overall impression. A reviewer who gives you an 18 might write a critique that mentions two small concerns. A reviewer who gives you a 25 might write an almost identical critique. Under categorical scoring, the language in those two critiques may matter more than the numbers do now, because the numbers are gone. What remains is the written record — and that record is what program officers, institute staff, and you will use to understand where you stand.

Write your Innovation and Significance sections so that a reviewer who cares about them can easily generate enthusiastic language. Not generic enthusiasm — specific language about why your particular approach addresses a particular gap that is genuinely important to your target study section. If your Significance section prompts a reviewer to write "this work addresses one of the central unresolved questions in the field," you are in a different category than if it prompts "significance is adequately addressed." Adequacy earns you "Competitive." Specificity and force get you toward "Most competitive."

The Written Critique Becomes Your Primary Signal

The five written criteria from the simplified review framework — Significance, Investigator(s), Innovation, Approach, Environment — aren't changing under this proposal. The categorical outcome will be derived from how reviewers assess these individually before arriving at an overall impression. So the structure of review feedback stays the same; only the summary number at the top changes.

Think carefully about how you're writing your Approach section's limitation paragraphs under a categorical system. Most applicants write those paragraphs defensively, preempting specific objections. That's still correct, but frame your alternatives as evidence of rigor, not as hedges against failure. A reviewer reading your limitation paragraph should be writing that you've anticipated problems thoughtfully — not that the problems are serious. The difference between those two framings can be the difference between categories. If the numerical score goes away, the language reviewers use to describe your application is the artifact that survives review and enters the record.

There's also a practical point about Investigator scoring that tends to get less attention than Significance or Approach. Under the simplified review framework, the Investigator criterion is scored by each reviewer before the meeting. A single concrete sentence in your Approach or in your Specific Aims about a specific technique you developed, a dataset you own, or a clinical collaborator you have in place will generate stronger reviewer language about your qualifications than a biosketch flourish can. If you're in "Competitive" and wondering why, weak Investigator language in your critique is one of the first places to look.

What Changes in Resubmission Strategy

The A1 resubmission rules — one resubmission allowed, two-year window from original submission date — aren't changing under NOT-OD-26-088. What changes is the input you have for writing the Introduction page.

Right now, the Introduction to a resubmission starts with an implicit acknowledgment of the numerical gap between your score and a payline or percentile target. That number shapes how ambitious your revision needs to be: a score in the upper 20s suggests something structural needs to change; a score in the low 30s might mean targeted revisions to two sections are enough. In a categorical system, "Competitive" is a wider band. You'll need to rely more heavily on the written critique itself to calibrate how much revision is warranted, and on your program officer's read of where you fell within the category.

That last point is worth emphasizing. Program officer conversations already carry significant weight for experienced applicants, but many first-time R01 writers treat the PO call as optional when they have a numerical score to interpret on their own. In a categorical system, the PO's read of how your application was received in the study section room becomes closer to essential. Program officers often have information about reviewer dynamics — which concerns were discussed at length, which were mentioned briefly, whether the panel was enthusiastic or divided — that doesn't make it into the written summary statement. Calling your PO after every scored submission isn't new advice, but under NOT-OD-26-088 it becomes less optional.

For the Introduction page itself: if the categories hold, you'll want to open by naming the category your original submission received and then immediately pivoting to the specific written concerns you've addressed. Don't dwell on the category label. Reviewers care about whether you heard their critique and responded substantively. "Our original submission was scored Competitive, with reviewers identifying two primary concerns around X and Y. We have addressed both as follows" is a cleaner opening than two paragraphs on why you deserve to move to "Most competitive." Show the work in the revised sections; reference it concisely in the Introduction.

How to Comment Before October 13, 2026

NIH is accepting public comments through October 13, 2026. If you have a stake in how peer review outcomes are reported — as an applicant, a reviewer, an administrator, or a program officer — this is an uncommon window to shape implementation details before they're finalized.

The most actionable comments will be specific. Generic support or opposition is less useful to NIH than concrete input on practical questions: How should NIH define the boundary between "Most competitive" and "Competitive"? Will institute-level category distributions be published after each review cycle, the way percentile data are now? How will categorical outcomes appear in the eRA Commons summary statement? Should the two-year A1 resubmission clock be adjusted if categorical feedback provides less decision-making signal than a numerical score? What happens to applications that are "Competitive" but not funded across multiple cycles?

You don't need to be affiliated with an institution or identified as a researcher to comment. NIH accepts public input from anyone. Look for the submission link in NOT-OD-26-088 on the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts. Keep comments focused on one or two specific questions — a comment that makes three clear, evidenced points gets more attention than one that covers every possible concern in a paragraph each.

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