Certify Pre-Meeting COI

Steps to electronically certify in IAR any conflict of interest before the review meeting. Until reviewers certify, they will not be allowed to submit critiques or scores.

Reviewers must identify any conflicts of interest they may have with any of the key personnel on grant applications they will be reviewing.Reviewers are required to electronically certify the pre-meeting form in IAR  before participating in the review meeting. Reviewers who do not electronically certify the pre-meeting COI certification in IAR will not be allowed to submit critiques, criterion scores and preliminary scores.

If a recertification is required, say if a new conflict is found, the system will prevent reviewers from moving forward until the recertification is in place. A recertification is also needed if the meeting date has changed; if the meeting agenda has changed from grants to contracts or vice versa; and if the designation of a reviewer has changed from federal reviewer to non-fed and vice versa.

An alert on key IAR screens will notify reviewers that they need to certify the pre-meeting COI certification if they have forgotten to do so or in case they need to recertify.

Basic Tasks (step by step instructions and screenshots)*

The NIH peer review process relies on Reviewers to identify any conflicts of interest (COI) that may affect the integrity of the process. This page provides the information needed to guide you through that process.  

• Pre-Meeting COI Certification (IAR online help)

• Quick Start Guide for Reviewers: Recertify Pre-Meeting COI 

* You must be logged into IAR via eRA Commons with appropriate role(s) to complete these activities. 

Main Screenshots

Figure 1: Alert displayed on List of All Applications screen if attempt is made to submit critique without certifying pre-meeting COI.

Figure 2: The certification area of the Pre-Meeting certification

Additional Resources

• Sample pre-and-post meeting COI certifications

  • NIH pre-meeting certification for grants (non-federal reviewer)

  • NIH pre-meeting certification for grants (federal reviewer)

• Pre-and-post meeting COI FAQs for reviewers

Policy Links

• NIH Conflict of Interest Rules - PDF- 170 kb (effective January 25, 2024)

• Initial Peer Review Conflict of Interest Policy

• NIH Guide Notice NOT-OD-13-010: Advance Notice: Revised Policy for Managing Conflict of Interest in the Initial Peer Review of NIH Grant and Cooperative Agreement Applications 

• Grants: COI Reviewer Guidance  (PDF - 36 KB) (February 2015)