Proposals must be submitted to the office by October 1 of the year prior to expected funding. Each submission is recorded by its title, investigators, and institution, and assigned a unique proposal number. Once recorded, a list of these details is sent to all members of the RAC.

Upon receiving the proposal list, committee members review it for any potential conflicts of interest that would prevent them from evaluating a proposal fairly. They notify the office of any conflicts. Meanwhile, copies of all proposals are prepared and sent to every committee member.

After conflicts have been identified, the office and the RAC Chair, Dr. Stephen Reed, assign proposals to individual reviewers. Each proposal is evaluated by four committee members: two focus on the scientific merit, and two evaluate the project’s impact or relevance to the industry. Among the four reviewers, one is designated as the Composite Reviewer, while the other three are Primary Reviewers. Each reviewer receives their assignment along with a primary scoring sheet, a composite scoring sheet, and a timetable for the review.

Each reviewer assesses their assigned proposal using the criteria outlined on the scoring sheet. They prepare a narrative review, highlighting the proposal’s strengths and weaknesses, suggesting improvements, and providing other objective evaluations. The three Primary Reviewers submit their narrative and scores to the Composite Reviewer, who is responsible for compiling the results.

The Composite Reviewer consolidates the individual evaluations by tabulating all primary scores into the composite scoring sheet and combining the primary narratives into a single composite narrative. The composite score, along with all individual narratives, is then submitted to the office. Maintaining the independence of individual reviews ensures that each reviewer’s judgment remains unbiased and prevents one strong reviewer from dominating the evaluation.