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Peer Review Committees

All American Cancer Society grant applications are evaluated for scientific merit and relevance to cancer using an independent, confidential, and highly competitive, two-stage peer review process.

Our Peer Review Process 

Each Peer Review Committee is composed of 12 to 25 scientific advisors (“peers”), who are experts in their fields. Each committee also has at least one stakeholder—an individual who has personal experience with cancer—as a survivor or as a family member or caregiver of a person with cancer

Extramural Discovery Science (EDS) Scientific Directors determine which peer review committee will review the applications, and they recruit experts to the committees and assign reviewers to each application.

Stage One: Committee members independently review grant applications and then meet in person or virtually as a group to discuss and rank applications by grant mechanism based on the evaluation criteria for the respective grant types. Each applicant is provided detailed critiques from the two assigned scientific experts.

Stage Two: Using the application ranking provided by the Peer Review Committees, the Extramural Discovery Science Council recommends funding based on the relative merit of the applications, the amount of available funds, and American Cancer Society (ACS) objectives.

FAQs: ACS Extramural Discovery Science and Grant Application Submissions.

See the EDS Research Programs and their associated peer-review committees: